Would he rather we have a president, like, say, Hillary Clinton, who appoints judges who would restrict religious freedom, who would continue to strip away protections for the unborn and who would continue to send millions of taxpayer dollars to organizations like Planned Parenthood that promote "a woman's right to choose"?
Given the choice between a president whose promiscuous taradiddles are sometimes embarrassing and one who would continue the annual destruction of over a million unborn babies, most of them either black or female, how could a pro-life Christian like my friend wish for the latter?
But would Mr. Trump actually be any better on this the most salient human rights issue of our time than Ms. Clinton or any of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination in 2020?
Well, according to some of the folks who took the trouble to attend Saturday's March for Life (You didn't know there was such a march? You must get your news from CNN.) Mr. Trump is the most pro-life president in our history. He's certainly done more for the cause than any other president in the last fifty years, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Mr. Trump hasn't always aligned himself with pro-lifers, however. In his previous life he was pro-choice, but becoming president has wrought a transformation in the man.
Whether or not the transformation is a political ploy, as his detractors allege, is really quite irrelevant. By appointing judges to both the federal bench and the Supreme Court who have a jaundiced view of the constitutionality of current abortion jurisprudence he has done more to reverse the tide on abortion than anyone else in his office has ever done.
He also, by appearing in person at Saturday's March, became the first president ever to have done so. It was a dramatic expression of solidarity with the movement.
Ben Domenech at The Federalist writes:
Trump spent most of his career as a limousine liberal on the issue of abortion. With some rare exceptions, his entire public history on the issue was pro-choice. His attitude largely seemed to disregard the matter, subsidiary to his more consistent interests in trade policy and the like. But since his election, it is impossible to say he has been anything less than the most successful pro-life president in the nearly half a century since Roe v. Wade.Tristan Justice, also at The Federalist, writes about how Trump has won over the skeptics in the pro-life movement:
Instead of trying to find the middle path as George W. Bush did on stem cells, instead of having any reluctance for defunding Planned Parenthood via the Reagan rule, Trump has viewed this as a binary process without any gray area. Either we fund abortions or we don’t. Either we name pro-life judges or we don’t. Either we call it like it is or we don’t. In each case, Trump’s tendencies toward shocking the polite conventions of politics has served pro-lifers well.
An abortion law regime that did represent the country would allow for legal bans after the first trimester as well as requirements for informing parents, and a variety of other limitations. This is the reality in most of Europe – in fact, their restrictions start even earlier. But the holy nature of Roe reduces this argument to the margins. This has to end.
It is the most fundamental question for us, whether the preborn lives that take root here are unique persons, with the right to draw breath and live, or whether they are non-persons, “lives unworthy of life”, “human weeds” as Margaret Sanger called them, whose destruction is a public good.
“I was a little skeptical at first,” said rally attendee Ken Berman sporting a pro-Trump hat, but added that after three years of Trump in the White House, his concerns have largely been abated by the appointment of conservative judges.Marjorie Dannenfelser president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a group endorsing pro-life candidates for office.
Donald Sweeting, the president of Colorado Christian University which brought about 200 students to the march, also said he was skeptical but that Trump had earned his trust on abortion.
“There’s never been a president to challenge the abortion industry quite like Trump,” Sweeting said.
Dannenfelser admitted that she too, was skeptical at first of Trump’s commitment to pro-life issues and actually opposed Trump in the beginning. Four years ago, Dannenfelser even wrote a letter to Iowa voters urging Iowans “to support anyone but Trump,” in the 2016 Republican caucus because when it came to abortion, “Mr. Trump cannot be trusted.”Meanwhile, Democrats have become increasingly radical on the issue of abortion:
“He was my last choice until he became my first choice,” Dannenfelser told The Federalist, but said she came to “completely embrace” Trump through the election after extracting “concrete commitments.”
Since Trump was sworn into office, the president has held up his end of the bargain, championing pro-life policies and appointing two conservative Supreme Court justices offering pro-life activists hope that the days of Roe v. Wade could be numbered.
For example, Democrats in the Virginia statehouse are currently considering a bill that would amend the Virginia Constitution to make abortion access a permanent legal right. Last January, they presented a bill that would repeal restrictions on abortion, allowing terminations up until the moment of birth, which Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam also backed.Unfortunately, Ms. Warren's intolerant and exclusionary views haven't yet reached my friend's ears. I wonder what he'll say when they do.
Last year, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the “Reproductive Health Act” into law, a similar bill allowing late term abortion.
During the November Democratic debate, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who supports few restrictions if any on abortion said there was no room for pro-life Democrats in the Democratic Party.