It’s become obvious that the man who ended Roe is now backing off his commitment to being pro-life.
Trump now opposes federal action on abortion while even criticizing some state pro-life laws as too extreme.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, recently stated that Trump would actually veto any abortion ban that made it through Congress. He said that by overturning Roe he returned the issue to the states and that’s where it should stay.
Now, Trump is saying that he not only supports IVF but he wants to make it a law that insurance companies have to pay for it.
So, there’s clearly a political calculation being made here. Trump clearly thinks that pro-lifers will believe he’s lying to women in order to gain their vote and then he will return to being pro-life.
Or maybe Trump thinks pro-lifers have nowhere else to go. They’re not going to vote for Kamala, right? She’s the most pro-death candidate you could get. She would attack the pro-life movement with every lever of power she could get her hands on.
He might be right about that. But pro-lifers have to push back. Politics are about negotiation. And if we just take what he’s giving us, we lose. We at least have to make the Trump campaign think we’ll stay home from this election. If he has no fear of us, we have no seat at the table.
My advice to pro-lifers is start saying you won’t vote for him online everywhere you can, even if you intend to vote for him.
August 30, 2024 at 1:30 pm
Not making excuses for Trump, but the (unfortunate) reality is that the voter landscape is nowhere near where it needs to be to support issues such as banning IVF or federally banning all abortions. It’s the demographic reality of the situation. It’s well under 50%. Probably 30-40%, if that. It’s very sad, I know. But it is what it is.
He gave us a Supreme Court that overturned Roe v Wade, which turned the issue back to the individual states. The battlefield since then has shifted from the national level to the individual state levels. The tactics and strategy must adjust accordingly for the grassroots pro-life movement. Changing hearts and minds at the local level, not changing national policy.
August 30, 2024 at 3:46 pm
“Trump clearly thinks that pro-lifers will believe he’s lying to women in order to gain their vote and then he will return to being pro-life.” Someone made exactly that argument regarding George W. Bush to me two dozen years ago. Specifically, Bush said that he would not use abortion as a “litmus test” in appointing justices to the Supreme Court; he had other, more important considerations for that. My friend said that Bush was just lying to get elected … and that this was somehow a virtue.
So, yes, Bush was nominally pro-life, but not in a way that mattered. Trump was more-or-less trying to be the same. He has never been any kind of real conservative; he has been play-acting as what liberals think conservatives really are, but he has somehow gotten away with it. In character and beliefs, he is MUCH more like Bill Clinton than like Ronald Reagan. The fact that Roe was overturned as a result of his ACTIONS does not in any way mean that it was his INTENTION for Roe to be overturned. It was, for him, an unfortunate accident that he is trying to limit.
The principles of the GOP as a whole have always been more along the lines that golf is good, taxes are bad, and war is profitable. If Trump wins, they will NEVER go back to being pro-life and pro-family. For what matters, we will have become a single-party state masquerading as a two-party state. Well, we’ve probably been that for a long time, but it will be more open from now on.
August 30, 2024 at 6:14 pm
Note: When I say, “The principles of the GOP as a whole have always been more along the lines that golf is good, taxes are bad, and war is profitable,” I mean in my adult lifetime, meaning back to the Reagan administration. There were always more George Bush’s than there were Ronald Reagan’s. More’s the pity. I think I would have liked Ike — though not his idea of a United States of Europe. Likewise, Theodore Roosevelt was not perfect, but I’d take him over anyone in politics today, full stop. I’ll never get the chance. The GOP has gone the way of Disney and the Boy Scouts. May the immortal souls ensnared in their deception be saved, but to heck with the institution!
August 31, 2024 at 12:18 pm
So you endorse lying to women to get Trump elected, and endorse his lies.
You and the whole “pro-life” moverment have never cared about anything but making women’s lives as miserable as possible.
August 31, 2024 at 2:59 pm
What can explain your ridiculous comment, “Karen”? Ignorance? Culpable malice toward the opponents of child murder? Insanity? Demon possession? All of the above?
August 31, 2024 at 3:49 pm
Why is it that it’s the child that gets put to death for the mistakes of the parents? In the case of rape or incest, why is the baby the one sentenced to death and not the father who committed the crime??
August 31, 2024 at 5:06 pm
Why is it that draftees die because of the mistakes of their leaders? Why is it that the poor have a much worse chance of being acquitted than the rich?
Such questions are hardly new.
I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity, and vexation of spirit. The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite.
For when a man laboureth in wisdom, and knowledge, and carefulness, he leaveth what he hath gotten to an idle man: so this also is vanity, and a great evil. For what profit shall a man have of all his labour, and vexation of spirit, with which he hath been tormented under the sun? All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, even in the night he doth not rest in mind: and is not this vanity?
August 31, 2024 at 11:55 pm
Prolife is politically dead. Prolife will vote Republican because it’s the least objectionable option. Republicans know that, so they don’t have to promise prolife anything anymore. Prolife candidates cannot win national elected office anymore. It’s over for prolife.
September 1, 2024 at 11:25 pm
The author’s absurd proposition is about as likely to succeed as RFK’s now abandoned campaign. NObody is stupid enough to believe that an overwhelming preponderance of pro-Life voters are going to stay home and not vote. They’ve tethered their souls to an amoral caididate and now all they can do is hold onto his tail as he runs in whatever direction he wishes. The gig is up.
September 2, 2024 at 12:35 am
It’s a terrible choice: vote for a muddle-headed cackler who will drag the nation even closer to hell, or a loud-mouth who probably won’t do much to stop or slow the nation’s collapse.
Well, this pro-lifer chooses neither. Both parties need to be dismantled and ground to powder. But as for the outcome of this election, God’s will be done.
September 2, 2024 at 7:59 am
Pro-Lifers are learning the hard way that it is past time to abandon in haste the United Snakes of America with its Freemasonic-inspired Constitution.