“I like Trump, but I refuse to vote for someone who is not pro-life… I will not be a moral relativist,” an acquaintance of mine posted to Facebook the week before 2024 elections. “I believe that is a big mistake, both in assessment and in action,” I responded before diving into the explanation I am about to provide here. In this discussion, I will be most directly addressing Donald Trump the President, his policies, and his intentional actions tied to the topic of abortion vs life. As someone who prefers to see lives saved rather than simply hearing someone say nice things about saving lives, I care much more about a president’s objective function than I do about his subjective personal identity. There are three ways that a POTUS can functionally be pro-life:
On count #1, I will argue that Trump is by far the most pro-life president that we have had since the passing of Roe. Donald Trump attended and spoke out in favor of the March for Life – a first among sitting presidents since the movement’s inception in 1974. Trump has also made a habit of speaking frequently about his pro-life stance. The 2024 campaign for presidency saw Trump draw fire from the right when he seemed to dip, dodge, and meander past giving direct answers about the topic of abortion. However, if we are to lay blame on anyone for Trumps reticence, the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of conservatives and the American church. Let me explain.
When Donald Trump made promises to overturn Roe v Wade and boldly stated that his SCOTUS picks would be pro-life, the right cheered, but when Trump fulfilled his promises, many on the right scattered like roaches. A troublingly large 31% of Republicans opposed the Dobbs decision and counted it as a mark against Trump’s leadership. Christian churches across the country took a pathetically weak, sorrowful, and apologetic tone, going as far as to warn against celebrating Dobbs. From the troublingly small group that dared to celebrate, many did it while lamenting Trump’s bombastic nature. The American right did what the American right has always done pre-Trump: they hung their heads, attempted to claim a faux moral high ground, and said, “We are sorry, progressives. Please don’t hate us.” As an involved Christian, I witnessed the phenomenon of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory firsthand. What ought to have been a rallying cry for the right and Trump’s finest hour became a point of shame and lack-luster energy for conservatives. But there was a group who did rally around the Dobbs decision: American leftwing extremists. Thousands of citizens who could hardly hide their glee at the idea of a dismembered infant labeled 2024 as the “reproductive rights election” and insisted that “abortion is on the ballot”. Trump had willingly assumed the role of the ultimate pro-life presidential warrior and opened himself up to the social and political risks that came along with that decision, and after he slew the dragon, his forces retreated. Should it be a surprise, then, that during a razor-thin 2024 election cycle, Trump sought to avoid discussing the topic of abortion in depth? The man had been given a pro-life wish list, fulfilled each item, and then been abandoned by a group of whiney holier-than-thou RINO’s as a reward.
Amid the uphill battle that was the 2024 presidential election, Trump went as far as to throw his attentive listeners a bit of reassurance when he answered an abortion-themed question by saying, “We’re living in a time when there has to be a little bit of a concession one way or the other…I will say this: You have to win elections. Otherwise, you’re going to be back where you were, and you can’t let that ever happen again. You’ve got to win elections.” Trump could hardly have made his point more overt had he looked directly into the camera while winking. Let’s win first, then we can tackle controversial topics.
On counts #2 and #3, there is no genuine debate to be had around whether or not Trump was (and is) a pro-life president. Between 2016 and 2020, President Trump purposefully appointed 3 pro-life Supreme Court Justices and said that he would veto any anti-life policy that landed on his desk. And he stuck to his word.
During his first 72 hours as a second-term POTUS, Donald Trump acted on one of his priorities by pardoning over 20 peaceful pro-life activists who had been wrongfully prosecuted and imprisoned by the Biden regime. In his triumphant return to office, Trump has sent a clear message to the pro-life community, “See? I still have your back”.
If you want to discuss Trump the man, we can speculate and debate about whether or not stopping abortion is an issue which weighs heavily upon his heart. My best guess is that he cares about abortion, but the topic is not at the top of his personal priority list. Trump seems to see some abortion exceptions as being legitimate, such as rape response and saving the life of the mother – which would land him in lock step with many politicians and individuals we identify as being pro-life. If, on the other hand, you want to discuss Trump the president, there is no debate to be had; Trump is pro-life. The oddity of misidentifying an ally is an oddity which is unique to the right. The left knows what Trump is, they know what policies he has fought for and will continue to fight for, and they hate him for it. But for some reason, on the right, our discussion goes something like, “Is the president who openly appointed 3 pro-life justices specifically for the purpose of overturning Roe at great political risk to himself really pro-life enough to deserve my vote?” This type of nonsense makes me, a fiercely pro-life conservative who likes winning, want to pull my hair out. As a person who believes children born to sexual assault victims are still children, I wish Trump were more vehemently pro-life. But to say that he is not pro-life or that he is pro-abortion seems like a drastic stretch.
Donald Trump has a collective list of bold pro-life actions and achievements which dwarfs his most recent pro-life presidential contemporary, George W Bush, and I do not remember anyone claiming that ‘Dubya wasn’t pro-life.
I’ll leave you with some questions I posed to my Facebook friend – questions which were left unanswered. You wanted a pro-life president, right? You had him. You had him for 4 years. And he did pro-life things. What did you do during that time and after? Did you rally support for him? Did you celebrate and commend his efforts? Or did you, like many I witnessed, whine and wish he were more palatable - then condemn him when he backed off the issue of abortion during a contentious, razor thin, campaign season? If you land in the latter group, I will assert that it is you who are the moral relativist.
