Memo to the Republican Party: Don’t Abandon the Unborn

In recent months, the Republican party and its candidate, Donald Trump, has been hell bent on abandoning its pro life credentials. The recent draft of its new platform abandons the “right to life” language in favor of emphasizing its moderate position and supporting access to contraception and IVF. Even once pro-life stalwarts like vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio have now advocated for access to the extremely dangerous and unregulated abortion pill and have backed Donald Trump in his quest to nix an abortion ban from the party platform. This trend is as worrying as it is disappointing.

It is one thing to be politically savvy, it’s another thing entirely to drop an issue of paramount importance because you feel it is unpopular. And I should clarify, I am not arguing that voting for Donald Trump is morally impermissible or even that you shouldn’t vote for him. But instead I intend to argue 1) why a political party should maintain its pro-life stance and 2) if they do not, what the millions of pro-life Americans should do.

Answering Electoral Problems

Many advocates point to a majority of Americans being pro-choice, the failures of pro-life ballot initiatives and the alleged losses of pro life candidates in the 2022 midterms as evidence that the pro-life position has become politically toxic. But reality is not so simple. First of all, pro life candidates did win in 2022. J.D. Vance himself was victorious as was Eric Schmidt, the first state official to sign an abortion ban into effect as Attorney General of Missouri, as was staunchly pro-life Governor Ron DeSantis. On a smaller level, state legislators in Iowa won by bigger margins after passing an abortion ban there. And Ohio, Florida, and arguably Missouri are very much swing states. Pro-life candidates win when they have a strong message and are unapologetic. We’ll go more into this later.

The candidates that lost were either 1) Weird and Confusing candidates (Mehmet Oz, Herschel Walker), or 2) Trump darlings who aggressively pushed election denial messaging (Kari Lake). Further proof that abortion was not the issue in 2022 is Georgia. Herschel Walker and Governor Brian Kemp both were on the ballot. Herschel Walker lost and if it was abortion that made Walker a loser, Kemp should have either lost or narrowly won. Instead he won by a landslide.

Another issue is the failed 2022 ballot initiatives, specifically Ohio and Kansas. Here is where I have some experience. I worked on the Kansas initiative and my team talked to over 40,000 people. There are two things which can be gained from this experience. The first is that issue-specific ballot initiatives are a terrible idea generally. The voting public was never meant to specifically decide issues of policy directly. This is the stuff Plato warned of. The founding fathers would have scoffed at the idea that specific policy issues be decided by majority vote. Elections are tumultuous and emotionally driven things, easily controlled by outside influences. Too often they become competitions of who has the most money and the loudest microphone. This is why we have a representative democracy and not a direct democracy. The solution to the problem posed by these referenda is not to abandon the pro-life position, but merely to keep it (or the specifics of other meaningful policy issue) off the ballot directly.

Making the Argument to Reshape Culture

But the second lesson to be gained from these referendums does point us to what the pro-life movement needs to do from here. Talking to 40,000 people it is clear that the pro-life movement has not approached the issue correctly in recent years. Pro-life organizations have spent most of their time trying to paint themselves as moderate groups trying to prevent extreme pro-abortion laws. It is believed, based on polling data, that Americans broadly support abortion but don’t support “extreme” abortion positions (because only killing some babies isn’t extreme?). But this strategy is one of defeatism and has proven to be fruitless. Human beings do not respond to tepid arguments, they respond to boldness and honesty. The pro-life movement has failed because it has refused to make its strongest arguments, the way other movements have.

In order to win the culture, pro-life activists and political actors must be unapologetic about being pro-life and they must educate the population about what abortion really is. The language of “reasonable restrictions” must give way to a language of “the unborn have rights” in order to reshape the way people think about abortion. Arguments against abortion are strong ones and when made correctly, they resonate with people. As an example of this, when ardently pro-choice people are simply shown a dispassionate description of an abortion procedure, they are horrified. These arguments must be made with charity and with compassion, but they must also be made with strength. The pro-life argument is a deeply common sense one which appeals to everyone’s conscience. We just have to make it.

Of course, we cannot make it in isolation. We have to understand that abortion is one piece of a bigger issue involving the necessity of family life. Anyone who knows me knows that I talk ad nauseum about the enormous impact that the collapse of the family has had on our society. Abortion is a necessity to maintain a social order without strong family structure, and if we are to combat it and reshape culture we have to tackle this issue. We will have to do more to support families and women in crisis, as we are already doing, and we will have to use our resources to help rebuild family culture in the United States. Vivek Ramasawamay understands this, and maybe even Donald Trump understands this, which gives me some hope for the party despite its present detour into insanity.

But the most important thing to understand is that this is not an issue we can compromise on. Abortion is the greatest human rights offense in America. Hundreds of thousands of the unborn are killed every year. And at the end of the day, we can use whatever policy-crafted language we like, but abortion is still murder. A genetically unique individual human being who can feel pain and who has conscious thoughts like you and me is killed in every abortion. This reality goes beyond politics and enters the realm of conscience. Prudence should be applied to be sure, and in some times and places abortion might be de-emphasised for the sake of other goals. But the most important thing to understand is that this is a slippery slope. Though it is reasonable to say that “we’re not going to try for a federal abortion ban right now because we don’t have the votes,” this kind of thinking can quickly turn to something much worse. There was once a time when the Democrats’ slogan was “safe, legal, and rare”. And if we abandon the unborn in our quest to win votes, we will have sold out the most vulnerable for a proverbial thirty pieces of silver.

The Way Forward

So then what are pro-life Americans, especially religious ones, to do if the republicans accept abortion hook line and sinker? Probably what we should have been doing this whole time. We should still continue to advocate for the unborn in political life. Donald Trump seems to be a man influenced by those around him and if the right voices advocate for the unborn he may yet be a pro life president as he was in his first term. But more importantly, the focus has to be moved. We have to focus on building healthy communities in which we can raise healthy children. This does not mean abandoning society altogether and we should remain engaged, especially on a state and local level (where, remember, most abortion laws actually happen). And there are still places in the federal government which can be a force for good, especially in reshaping culture. But the best thing to do is to focus on community. Build up catholic or christian neighborhoods and towns. Build classical schools, and strong and morally orthodox churches. Start a small business or learn a trade. And most importantly get married young and have many, many children. If we want to save our hurting and broken culture, we must ignite a revolution of community from which we can weather the storm and emerge victorious.

Image: Unborn child by
Lorianne DiSabato Flickr

By Vincent Schiffiano