Posted on January
31, 2020
No. He. Isn't.
Trump dumps on pro-life predecessors
by
Daniel
Clark
You're probably aware that Donald Trump became the
first president to speak in person at the annual March for Life. Actually, he spoke to a small gathering of
early arrivers in a fenced-off section of the National Mall, where attendees
are usually able to swarm in from all angles to see and hear the speakers who
precede the march. The vast majority of
the marchers were kept out of earshot from the stage by a high fence, patrolled
by a dense perimeter of security. It was
as if a Trump re-election campaign rally had been parachuted into the middle of
an entirely separate event.
That's
exactly the kind of security concern that prevented other Republican presidents
from ever attending the march. But what
did they know? The point is that Trump
was first, which somehow is supposed to mean he's more dedicated to the
pro-life cause, even though he'd been pro-abortion for almost his entire life,
he really doesn't seem conversant on the issue, and it clearly hasn't been a
high priority for him. In a
late-December anti-impeachment tweet in which he exhaustively catalogued his
real, imagined and exaggerated accomplishments, right-to-life issues didn't
rate a mention.
Nevertheless, those few marchers who made it through
the checkpoint to see Trump's speech were handed red signs with his picture on
them, which read, "Most Pro-Life President.
Ever." That would be pretty
obnoxious, even if it were true. The
point of the March for Life is not to engage in chest-beating about who is the bigliest, bestiest of all
time. If Trump were really committed to
defending innocent, unborn human life, he would show some appreciation for the
accomplishments of those who came before him.
From 1973 to 1981, both major political parties were
functionally pro-abortion. Richard
Nixon's reaction to Roe v. Wade was
muted. Not only did both he and Gerald
Ford passively accept legalized abortion, but many years later, both former
presidents would encourage the Republican Party to drop the pro-life plank from
its platform. In addition, it was Nixon
who had signed the Title X addendum to the Public Health Service Act,
authorizing the use of taxpayer money for "family planning."
It's taken for granted anymore that the Republican
Party, and any president representing it, must be pro-life, but this might
never have been true had Ronald Reagan not made it so. By championing the pro-life cause, Reagan
took a remarkably bold and lonely stand.
Not only did he face opposition from the Democrats and the news media,
but also from the most prominent leaders of his own party, his friends in
Hollywood, and even his family. Nobody
could realistically suggest that he was driven by anything but his own deeply
held convictions.
Reagan originated the Mexico City Policy, prohibiting
non-government organizations that receive U.S. funding from performing or
promoting abortions overseas. He also
reduced Title X funding, and advocated a Human Life Amendment to the
Constitution. Still, his greatest
contribution was in reorienting the Republican Party around conservative
principles, steering it back from its leftward drift of the Nixon-Ford-Rockefeller
era.
In
1983, Reagan penned an essay of about 35 pages entitled Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, which was supplemented
by pieces written by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and British author Malcolm
Muggeridge and released as a book. To
date, it remains the only book published by a sitting president. Anybody who now says Reagan was not as pro-life as Trump
needs to read it, and then apologize profusely.
All major pro-life federal legislation that's been
enacted bears the signature of George W. Bush, who is responsible for The
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, The Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, and the
Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
Furthermore, it was GWB who set the standard of appointing strict
constructionists to the federal judiciary, for which Trump now takes credit.
At the time, this was met with howls of protest,
charging that Bush was imposing "litmus tests" and making the courts too
ideological. He eagerly took on that
fight, in a way that Trump, following in his footsteps, hasn't had to. Trump has merely taken the Bush blueprint and
handed it to conservative think tanks, for them to provide him a list of judges
from which to choose.
There's no disputing the fact that Trump's policies on
right-to-life issues have been very favorable.
If he were really the bigliest and bestiest of all time, however, his red signs, and the
rhetoric of his sycophants, would not frame his pro-life predecessors as the
opposition.
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