Trump is like a caricature of the good, the bad and the ugly! But where do the scales end up? Is there enough good to balance out the bad and the ugly? There is so much noise and (dare I say) ‘misinformation’ around the enigma that is Donald Trump (and his incoming administration), it’s hard to know where to begin.
Our main concern, as always, is protecting innocent life. So what does Trump’s re-election really mean for the pro-life movement once you cut through all the noise and hysteria?
Well, let’s get the “bad” out of the way first
It’s certainly the bit that a lot of Christians who don’t particularly care for Trump are focusing on. The thing most pro-life Trump opponents seem to have been upset by in the last few weeks is the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) as Secretary for Health and Human Services. And at first glance I can certainly see why.
RFK has in the past been unashamedly pro-choice. Although he flip-flopped on the issue of abortion during his own presidential campaign. He says he believes “it is always the woman’s right to choose.” But he has also said “every abortion is a tragedy” and called for a national ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy – before reversing his position.
However, personally I find the change to the 2024 Republican Party platform more distressing. While still claiming to proudly stand for families and life, it is the most watered down stance on this subject since Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973. The exact wording is as follows:
“Republicans Will Protect and Defend a Vote of the People, from within the States, on the Issue of Life
We proudly stand for families and Life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights. After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People. We will oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”
Trump has made no secret of the fact that he believes in the exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother; but that regardless of his personal beliefs, his commitment as president is that this should be an issue that is decided by voters at the state level.
By appointing 3 conservative Supreme Court Justices in his first term, Roe was overturned and this has become the law of the land…at least on paper.
In reality, the Democrats have done all they can to hamper states passing and enforcing pro-life laws over the last 2 years, and with the extremely pro-abortion Biden and Harris administration backing them up from the White House, they have been largely successful.
Harris of course would not have been able to fulfill her promise to the American people of “restoring the protections of Roe”, because just as she and Biden have not possessed the power to overrule the Supreme Court in the last 2 years, she wouldn’t have had it going forward either, even had she been elected. And without both the House and the Senate, there would, in reality, have been very little she could have done beyond what is already in place.
However, what the Democrats have put in place has been devastating enough for pro-life states. The 21 that had passed pro-life laws, have been hamstrung by large abortion funds, pills by post schemes and shield laws, allowing blue states to post pills en masse into red ones. You can read more about this travesty here.
Obviously, we would disagree with Trump regarding this being a state level voting issue, and I echo the conservative voices who are demanding that pro-life voters push back on the Republican party, to restore a firm stand for life to their platform.
However, are we in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater (pardon the pun), if we refuse to see the good for the bad and the ugly?
There is a lot of good news!
Let’s take Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) for example. I am nowhere near as worried as some that he is going to push for increased abortion access or funds during his tenure at HHS. For a start, Trump knows he is on thin ice with pro-lifers and his Vice President and likely successor, JD Vance, is very pro-life (describing himself as 100% pro-life prior to the election).
But mainly, it’s just not RFK’s focus. He is far more concerned with ending chronic disease, food additives and the proper testing of vaccines. Is this not something we should also be championing? So often we are accused of not caring about babies once they are born (which is false), and here is a man looking to dramatically improve the lives and health of America’s children. Not to mention that his flip flopping indicates that he’s not as invested in the issue of abortion now that he’s no longer a Democrat.
However, I am even more reassured when we take a look at who will be working with RFK within the Health administration sector:
Dr. Marty Makary, the nominee for FDA Commissioner is pro-life and has even talked about babies resisting abortion instruments with Tucker Carlson when he was a host on Fox news.
Dr. Dave Weldon, the nominee for CDC Director even has an anti-abortion amendment named after him.
“The Weldon Amendment protects pro-life pregnancy centers, churches, and pro-life organisations by prohibiting discrimination from government officials because they do not refer for abortion or provide coverage for it in their health insurance plans,”
Kevin Theriot, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom told The Daily Signal.
“Government officials should never target groups and individuals simply because of their pro-life beliefs.”
Weldon describes himself as a pro-life Republican and has a 100% pro-life voting record. He says:
“I believe that the most important indicator of a civilized society is how it treats its weakest and most defenseless population, and I cannot think of a weaker or more defenseless person than a baby in the mother’s womb. It is indeed a grim comment on western civilization when we kill humans of any age.”
“The distance between life and death for these babies is a mere three inches,” he went on. “… The value of human life has been debased in our civilization to the point where animals have protective rights where humans do not. We are knee-deep in a culture of death.”
Dr. Mehmet Oz, formerly a TV show host of “The Dr Oz Show,” was recently appointed by President-elect Trump to be the new Head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).This would include abortion funding. Turkish-American Oz is a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon with degrees from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
He earned the nomination of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania as a 2022 candidate for the U.S. Senate — a political race which he ultimately lost to incumbent Democrat Senator John Fetterman. During that race, Oz’s views on abortion became more known.
“I do believe that life starts at conception, and I’ve said that multiple times,” he said during a tele-town hall as reported by NBC News. “My mother-in-law wrote a lot of the original pro-life literature in Montgomery County. […] If life starts at conception, why do you care what age their heart starts beating at? It’s, you know, it’s still murder if you were to terminate a child whether their heart’s beating or not.”
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, proponent of scientific freedom and free speech, chosen to lead NIH under Trump
Live Action reports that:
“While Bhattacharya does not appear to have publicly espoused his views regarding abortion, free speech is a value that the pro-life movement holds dear. The First Amendment rights of pro-lifers have been restricted in numerous places through the use of “buffer zones” which disallow any free pro-life speech within a certain distance of an abortion facility. It is specifically pro-life speech and actions that are restricted within these zones.”
And while Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, nominee for Surgeon General, doesn’t tend to speak about abortion at all, she is a member of a Samaritan's Purse Disaster Assistance Relief Team, whose values most certainly do oppose it. So there is no hint that she will try to advance pro-abortion policy.
And what about the big players on team Trump, outside of the Department of Health?
You guessed it, more good news!
Trump’s new nominee for Attorney General, Pam Bondi, (the first female attorney general in Florida’s history), boasts a strong pro-life record. "It's very personal to me because I have a Down syndrome niece, and Emma is 18 and the love of our lives,” she told EWTN during a 2022 pro-life event in Florida. “And I can't imagine what other people would have done, but for my sister. And she is the true love of our lives. So we're a very, very pro-life family and always will be."
She also has deep experience combating the opioid crisis, one of the most vexing criminal justice issues of our day (and again, one that is costing tens of thousands of innocent lives). During Trump’s first term, she served on his Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission, co-authoring a report on the opioid crisis that issued recommendations on how to handle fentanyl. And in 2018, she sued drugmakers, including CVS and Walgreens, for misrepresenting their products to the public, which the suit alleged caused addiction to painkillers.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has famously said “even one abortion is too many”.
Kristi Noem, the Secretary for Homeland Security is also vociferously pro-life; having signed many pieces of anti-abortion legislation into law in South Dakota as Governor, including a heartbeat bill, a ban on telemedicine abortions and a law allowing every woman to have a sonogram and hear their babies heartbeat before making the decision to abort. She was also the first governor in the nation to designate an official in her office to serve as an advocate for unborn children.
The nominee for Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth’s pro-life beliefs have been on display during his tenure at Fox News. In an opening monologue after the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, Hegseth hailed the decision and criticised Roe. He described Roe v. Wade as:
“the landmark decision that has led to the abortion of at least 62 million innocent American babies since 1973. A generational genocide of America’s unborn. Now worshiped by the left as a savior for women, for far too long, Roe v. Wade seemed untouchable. Just 10 years ago, with Obama in the White House and a Supreme Court stacked with pro-choice justices, this day, it felt very far off. Until now, because of the endless efforts of pro-life groups, activists, educators, mothers.”
Mike Huckabee, Ambassador to Israel
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister who ran for president in 2008, said: “It would be more fair to say that I got into politics because I’m pro-life”.
Telling CNN “I just come down on the side that life is precious; every life has worth and value. I don’t think we discount the intrinsic worth of any human being, and I don’t know where else to go with it other than just to be consistent and say, if life matters, and that’s a person, then every life matters,” he said. “There are two victims. One is the child”
Elise Stefanik, Trump’s Ambassador to the United Nations has an A+ rating on her National pro-Life Scorecard from the Susan B Anthony Pro-life institute. She has stood up for the lives of the unborn consistently and vehemently for her entire career.
The new Press Secretary Karoline Levit, who incidentally used to work for Stefanik, is also pro-life and campaigned on this issue when she ran for congress herself in New Hampshire in 2022. Indeed, Trump has a habit of picking pro-life women to speak from the White House podium on his behalf, with Kayleigh McEnany and Sarah Sanders - both staunchly anti-abortion - serving as press secretaries in his last administration.
Trump’s Interior Secretary pick Doug Burgum has signed some of the strictest abortion bans in the country into law as Governor of North Dakota.
Following the overturning of Roe v Wade, the state banned abortions with the only exceptions being for instances of rape, incest or serious risks to the mother’s health. These exceptions are still only permitted up until six weeks of pregnancy. Abortions are only permitted after six weeks of pregnancy to save the life of the woman.
Former Republican congressman Doug Collins, Trump’s pick to lead Veteran Affairs, has made his anti-abortion stance clear.
When Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, Collins celebrated the chance to appoint a conservative, anti-abortion judge to the court.
“RIP to the more than 30 million innocent babies that have been murdered during the decades that Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended pro-abortion laws,” he wrote on Twitter at the time.
“With @realDonaldTrump nominating a replacement that values human life, generations of unborn children have a chance to live.”
Pro-life former Congressman Sean Duffy nominated as Secretary of the Department of Transportation
As Live Action has reported, Duffy has been an ardent pro-life advocate during his time in Congress, speaking out against the high abortion rate among ethnic minorities, and co-sponsoring a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain.
He was also appointed to the Select Investigative Panel on Planned Parenthood, which investigated the information disclosed in videos released by the Center for Medical Progress. The videos showed Planned Parenthood representatives discussing potential pricing for aborted body parts, as well as potential ways to illegally alter abortion procedures to better obtain human fetal specimens for procurement agencies.
Tulsi Gabbard, nominee for Director of national intelligence.
Most people assume, as she’s a former Democrat, that Gabbard is pro-choice. Indeed, her voting record as a Democrat was pro-abortion. However, 2 years ago coming up to the midterms, Texas right to life reported that Gabbard was campaigning against a Michigan abortion amendment that would legalise abortion up till birth. Gabbard explained:
“Michigan’s draconian Proposal 3 that’s on the ballot… includes legal loopholes that allow late-term and partial birth abortions, which essentially is really infanticide”.
Seven months ago, she also stated on Bill O'Reilly's show that she does support the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Kash Patel, the Nominee for FBI Director, has no public position on abortion but will likely stop the FBI from targeting pro-lifers and churches.
I could go on but you get the point. The Trump administration is full of pro-lifers.
The good kind of ugly!
I think one of the biggest wins though has to be Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Things will undoubtedly get very ugly as they try to take $2 trillion off government spending!
The best part though…Ramaswamy (a hindu) is 100% pro-life and has indicated that DOGE will defund Planned Parenthood via a post on Twitter. In fact, he even went so far as to re-tweet LifeNews.com when they reported on this. That’s anywhere between $300 million and $700 million dollars a year that would no longer go to fund the largest abortion provider in the US.
Rep. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, said this week that he too hopes to defund Planned Parenthood once the new Trump administration is in place.
Add this to the majority conservative Supreme Court that will likely now remain conservative for many years to come; as it is expected two of the oldest conservative justices will step down during Trump’s term, securing him the nomination of two more.
With a pro life Attorney General and Department of Justice, will we also see the shield laws hampering pro-life states challenged and overturned? I think it's likely. Not to mention the peaceful pro-life protesters (among them sick grandmas and young mothers) who will probably now be pardoned and spared years in jail for praying at abortion clinics.
Every single pro-life Governor who was up for re-election in November, was successful. Three of the five pro-abortion ballots that went to the vote in specific states on November 5th, failed to pass.
Kamala Harris might have won the female vote overall, but a lower percentage of women voted for her than for Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden! Not to mention that Trump (despite abortion being a huge campaign issue for Harris), saw gains in the female vote this time around, even in the youngest demographics (45% overall and he won the white female vote with 53%). The notion that so-called “reproductive rights” were going to win this election for the Democrats, proved false.
The good, the bad and the ugly
Yes there is bad and there is certainly ugly (some of it the good kind though). But be encouraged for there is good as well, and much to hope for. I take heart that pro-lifers are not taking their foot off the gas on this issue and will continue to push team Trump and the Republicans (as we should).
However I feel that with so many pro-lifers now in office, and with the success of the Trump campaign even despite the relentless pro-abortion campaigning on the other side, that this issue can be spoken about confidently again.
As Lila Rose has said:
“Abortion is not a ‘states’ rights issue.’ Abortion is a human rights issue, and it is already unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which declares that no state shall ‘deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’”
So let’s go forward with gratitude, prayer and a renewed commitment to change hearts and minds on this issue, for the laws will follow. And who knows, with reasoned argument and the truth on our side, we might yet even make pro-lifers of RFK and Elon Musk!
Debbie Mountford also joined Dave Brennan on the Brephos About Abortion podcast, responding initially to Trump's re-election victory, you can watch below: