Donald Trump & Abortion

Christians, listen up. If you voted for Donald Trump because you think he’s such a terrific Christian role model and he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade and criminalize abortion, you’d be pleased to hear that today, Donald Trump is speaking at an anti-abortion rally.

However, you may not be pleased to hear that in 1999, he was asked in an interview with NBC “would President Trump ban partial birth abortion?” to which he replied “I’m very pro-choice.” The interviewer confirmed with him “you would not ban it?” and he reaffirmed “No. I am pro-choice in every respect and as far as it goes”.

I personally have mixed feelings about abortion: I believe we ought to restrict it to cases of incest and danger to the mother. Donald Trump disagrees. The fact that he’s pounding a different drum now is not indicative of a change of heart, it’s indicative of the fact that he knows his audience and knows how to squeeze votes out of his evangelical base. I believe true Christians will ultimately see through his deception on the abortion issue.

What Trump is doing is not motivated by a respect for human life, it’s motivated by greed and a desire to keep himself in Christians’ good graces so that they’ll reelect him. Unfortunately, Trump’s recently adopted stance on abortion won’t do anything to curb the practice in the long run. While his statements and actions have enflamed state legislatures to the point that a few very red states have passed new laws banning abortion, those laws are all too radical and incendiary to make a real difference; they’ll be overturned as soon as the current leaders in those states are replaced. For example, Alabama has now restricted abortion to such a ridiculous extent that if a 10 year old girl were to be raped and impregnated by her father, and she decides to abort the baby, she could be imprisoned for life. Virtually nobody on either side thinks that’s the right way to handle this issue.

The legislation needed to restrict abortion will have to be carefully weighed to ensure that abortion is an option in the very rare cases where it makes sense, but not available as a form of birth control. Donald Trump is hurting the long term prospects of such legislation ever being passed by radicalizing the opposition and leading them to take up positions that make them less supportive of any new laws that would restricting abortion, but we know that ultimately doesn’t matter to him, because as he’s confirmed, he’s “very pro-choice”.

But just because Trump isn’t really pro-life doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t be, and we have another option.

Abortion has been a well-documented practice since the height of the Greek and Roman civilizations millennia ago, and governments have tried making it illegal, without success in reducing the number of abortions. It’s certainly something that we need to address, but broadly criminalizing it is not the best way to actually prevent abortions from happening, it’s just a good way to punish people who have them. And unfortunately, punishing someone after they’ve had an abortion doesn’t undo the loss of life.

There’s a better, more immediate way to reduce abortions than just making it illegal, and that is by improving sex education and increasing access to birth control and contraceptives so that fewer unwanted pregnancies occur in the first place. You can argue for abstinence, but realistically, that’s not a solution: not everyone’s religion requires them to abstain from sex until marriage, and regardless of whether you think they’re wrong or right, we can agree that out of wedlock sex that doesn’t lead to unwanted pregnancy is favorable to out of wedlock sex that does lead to unwanted pregnancy where women may consider abortion.

Donald Trump has no plan to reduce the number of abortions taking place in America, but Joe Biden does. Joe’s plan would provide greater access to birth control and contraceptives. If you truly want to see progress on reducing abortions in the United States, pick Joe Biden.