Why Pro-Lifers MUST Vote Pro-Trump

I have recently run into sincere, committed Catholics and other Christians who 1) Identify themselves as strongly pro-life and 2) Aren’t sure how to vote in the upcoming presidential election. Since in so many other areas, we were on the same page, we were able to talk this over in a reasoned fashion. I don’t usually go this political in my blog. But I need to, if it will help one more person cast a vote in the pro-life direction in this crucial election.

To me, that Trump is the only possible candidate that a pro-lifer can vote for is obvious. So I was initially surprised by the “I’m not sure I can vote for Trump” self-identified pro-lifers.

The universal difficulty strong pro-lifers have in voting for Trump is his personality. Secondarily, they may disagree with his stance on immigration, healthcare, or other issues. No one denies that Trump is a really blunt instrument, not a scalpel. He makes outrageous, often rude, sometimes hurtful statements. He’s a bull in a china shop. He is not someone I would enjoy hanging out with. I get along with all sorts of people, but I can’t imagine being friends with him. He can definitely be arrogant, and he is probably dishonest: few people get to where he is without cutting some deals. (Of course, that applies to Biden and Harris as well, but that’s a different issue.)

But Trump’s style and character are TOTALLY beside the point in this election. Whatever his motives - and he’s been so consistent and uncompromising in this area that I actually trust his motives here - no president has been so consistently pro-life as Trump. His words and presidential acts on behalf of the unborn could not be clearer and stronger. He has fulfilled his pro-life campaign promises with remarkable thoroughness and without apparent regard for the flak he’s taken for his stance. (Incidentally, he has been just as much a crusader for religious liberty, too.) As of this writing, he’s proposed another judge for the Supreme Court who will unquestionably fight for the unborn.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has stated clearly that abortion is THE issue “trumping” all other issues. Trump’s and Biden’s political positions in the arena of abortion (and religious liberty) couldn’t be more opposed. Who the President is really, really matters in concrete terms. So, a vote for Trump is simply a vote for the rights of the unborn. We have no other option. It is a question of saving babies from being murdered in the womb, or electing someone who will relentlessly promote abortion under the name of “reproductive rights”. Period.

A few reflections come to mind. First, Trump’s sincerity in this area doesn’t matter. God can, and does, use pagans to accomplish his will. In Genesis, He used the Pharaoh to raise Joseph to a position of power. Joseph, in turn, saved the future nation of Israel from starvation through famine. Later in the Old Testament, God used Cyrus, the pagan king of Persia, to free the Jews from exile, return them to Israel, and fund the rebuilding of the Temple. In Isaiah 45:1,3-4 - remarkably - the Lord calls Cyrus His anointed, the same word elsewhere translated as Messiah.

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
    whose right hand I have grasped,
I will give you the treasures of darkness
    and the hoards in secret places,
that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
    the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
For the sake of my servant Jacob,
    and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
    I surname you, though you do not know me.

Second, there are crucial times in history where one has to choose the leader who will get the job done over the more likable or even the more virtuous leader. People complained to President Abraham Lincoln that General Grant, the head of the increasingly victorious Union forces, drank excessively. Lincoln’s response was, "I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."

The Washington Post (predictably) noted that, amidst Britain’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s funeral, we need to remember that Churchill was an imperialist racist. The link is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/03/the-dark-side-of-winston-churchills-legacy-no-one-should-forget/ The author, Ishaan Tharoor, does acknowledge that one Churchill biographer “insists that [Churchill’s] failings were unimportant” because he saved Britain from the Nazis. But Tharoor disagrees.

I’m with the biographer. The prime minister whom Churchill replaced, Neville Chamberlain, may have had a sterling character. But it was a weak one. He repeatedly caved to the manipulation and broken promises of a Hitler bent on world conquest. Churchill saw Hitler for the menace that he was and responded decisively and courageously. He was the right man for the job.

So, Trump is a bull in a china shop: but bulls ARE useful for charging through barriers. Trump is arrogant and overconfident: so he isn’t cowed by the abortion lobby, public opinion, or the astonishing amount of hatred he generates. Too many of his Republican colleagues - too many Christians, it appears - are. Trump can be simplistic: but the issue of abortion is very simple. Many, even, of our church leaders do not seem to grasp how simple it is.

There is room for debate about immigration. There’s room for debate about universal healthcare. There’s room for debate about global climate change and the environment, globalism versus nationalism, federal power versus state power, free-market capitalism versus other economic models, or more or less restrictive responses to the COVID crisis. But about the killing of the innocent, the murder of an unborn child in his/her mother’s womb? No debate. Trump opposes it. Biden supports it. A vote for Trump in this election is a vote for the unborn.