Trump is no champion for the pro-life cause

In the climactic scene of the movie "A Man for All Seasons," Sir Thomas More learns that Richard Rich, who has just perjured himself, has been named attorney general for Wales. More delivers one of the most devastating rebukes: "For Wales? Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … but for Wales!"

To Pavone and Hawkins, I ask: "But for Trump?"

Not every pro-life organization or leader was so feckless. The Susan B. Anthony List issued a statement saying it was "deeply disappointed" with Trump's stance. And his own former vice president, Mike Pence, called it "a slap in the face." 

Trump said he thought the issue should be left to the states. That was Monday, April 8. After the state supreme court in Arizona reinstated an 1864 law banning abortions except to save the life of the mother the next day, Trump shuffled yet again. "Yeah, they did," Trump said about the court's judges when asked if they went too far. "That'll be straightened out, and as you know it's all about states' rights." Will he straighten that out before or after he straightens out the war in Ukraine? Asked if he would sign a national abortion ban, he said, "No."

That phrase, "states' rights." Where have we heard that before? 

Ross Douthat, at The New York Times had a fine piece that argued Trump's rise to political power is part of the reason for the diminished support for the pro-life cause:

If you set out to champion the rights of the most vulnerable human beings while promising protection and support for women in their most vulnerable state, and your leader is a man famous for his playboy lifestyle who exudes brash sexism and contempt for weakness, people are going to have some legitimate questions about whether they can trust you to make good on your promises of love and care.

This is a related, but different, charge of hypocrisy from the more standard one, and the difference is significant. The consistent ethic of life challenges Catholics, and all people of goodwill, to grasp that championing the rights of all vulnerable persons strengthens the argument for championing the rights of the most vulnerable. Regrettably, many people do not see an issue that is inescapably and profoundly personal like abortion on the same plane as issues like immigration or the death penalty which do not necessarily affect them or those close to them personally. The hypocrisy that Douthat highlights touches on the personal and sexual. 

There is a deeper problem, however, that Douthat does not really address, and that is the reduction of the pro-life cause to a political and legal movement in the first place. The early Christians conquered the Roman empire by the power of their witness, not by the witness of their power. In the post-Dobbs era, the pro-life movement has conspicuously and rightly focused on the need to support pregnant women, especially women facing crisis pregnancies. The pro-life movement would have been far more persuasive, and successful, if that focus had come first, if we had focused on building a culture of life more than overturning Roe. 

The conversion of hearts needed to precede the change in law. By aligning itself with Trump, the pro-life cause finds itself in a long line of people and causes damaged irreparably by hitching their bandwagon to the former president. He has brought nothing but grief to business associates, workers, former Cabinet secretaries, the conservative movement, the nation, and now, to the pro-life cause.