With Best-Ever Pro-Life Start For A President . . . Trump Shakes Up Settled Order On Abortion
By DEXTER DUGGAN
Why does trying to save countless babies’ lives from abortion slaughter draw derision from upper-crusters as being socially embarrassing if not downright, um, deplorable?
But the abortion industry’s full-bladed, bloody attack on the most innocent and defenseless is regarded benignly, if not as outright thrillingly marvelous.
One need only think of the morally upside-down and inside-out world of, say, the radically pro-abortion New York Times to wonder whatever became of journalists’ moral compass.
Donald Trump has a characteristically blunt way of dealing with such elitist delusions. Just brush them aside for being fake news.
Some politicians still seem to think that having a pro-lifer with a rose for life knocking on their doors is bad manners.
However, Trump invited a bunch of the young rose-bearers right into his White House Rose Garden on January 19, so they could surround him on camera as he told the nearby massive national March for Life and the rest of the world not only about his pro-life dedication but also the results being produced.
It was a powerful tableau straight from the president’s house, with Vice President Mike Pence joining in. Large outdoor screens conveyed the event in real time to where participants in the march could watch.
Introducing Trump, Pence said:
“Forty-five years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States turned its back on the unalienable right to life. But in that moment, our movement began. A movement that continues to win hearts and minds. A movement defined by generosity, compassion, and love. And a movement that one year ago, tomorrow, inaugurated the most pro-life president in American history, President Donald Trump.”
Previous Republican presidents had phoned in greetings to January’s national pro-life march, but media-savvy Trump wanted the visuals to emphasize his message.
From his house to the world, Trump pointed out that the Supreme Court ruling was so extreme, it “resulted in some of the most permissive abortion laws anywhere in the world,” including elective late-term abortion. “It is wrong; it has to change.”
Also, the White House website (whitehouse.gov) carried prominent text and photo coverage of the event, with a message from the press secretary’s office saying, “In his first year, President Trump has become the most pro-life president in the history of the United States.”
The site said, in boldface type for emphasis: “For the past year, the Trump administration has sought to change the conversation and policy landscape surrounding abortion.”
Trump also used his favorite communication method of Twitter on January 19 to send out a message that the pro-lifers “are living witnesses of this year’s March for Life theme,” “Love Saves Lives.”
By the night of January 23, a video of his comments accompanying his tweet had been viewed 2.34 million times.
National radio talk host Laura Ingraham told her audience that Trump had done more for the pro-life movement during his one year in office so far than President George W. Bush did in eight years.
That seems to be something about Trump. No procrastinating, dithering, and worrying if he’ll offend elitists before he takes action.
Ingraham was an early and strong Trump supporter, but conservative writer Mollie Ziegler Hemingway wasn’t. However, Hemingway wrote at The Washington Post on January 19:
“Trump was not my first or even second choice for president, but a full two years ago I predicted he would win. I also predicted he’d be a progressive president, which explained why I was not among his supporters, and why I am so pleased now.”
She doesn’t like Trump’s “intemperate disposition,” Hemingway wrote, but “that boorish attitude has come in handy after decades of media bullying of conservatives. Ironically, the very lack of conservative bona fides that worried me two years ago means he’s less beholden to a conservative establishment that had grown alienated from the people it is supposed to serve and from the principles it ostensibly exists to promote.”
Hemingway added, “His surprising conservatism might also be the result of the absolutism and extremism of his critics. . . .”
Back when he was running for the presidency two years ago, Trump wrote a guest column headlined “My vision for a culture of life” in the January 23, 2016, Washington Examiner. He admitted he used to have an accepting view of abortion, but changed his mind.
Criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court for imposing permissive abortion on the nation by “imagining rights and liberties in the Constitution that are nowhere to be found,” Trump wrote:
“. . . (T)he 1973 decision became a landmark decision demonstrating the utter contempt the court had for federalism and the 10th Amendment. Roe v. Wade gave the court an excuse to dismantle the decisions of state legislatures and the votes of the people.
“This is a pattern that the court has repeated over and over again since that decision,” Trump wrote. “Roe v. Wade became yet another incidence of disconnect between the people and their government.”
The Wanderer asked the national traditional-values organization Alliance Defending Freedom to comment on Trump’s Rose Garden remarks. Its legal counsel Kellie Fiedorek replied:
“President Trump is right to observe that the United States is an outlier when it comes to its abortion laws, being only one of seven countries in the world that allows a child to be torn from his or her mother’s womb throughout all nine months of pregnancy. This is one of the tragic results of the Roe v. Wade decision that must change.
“The president’s remarks were significant not only for what he said but also for where he said them — addressing hundreds of thousands of Americans at the March for Life via live video feed, which no president has previously done. We welcome and agree with the president’s comments and look forward to his administration’s continued effort to ensure that women and their unborn children’s lives are cherished and protected,” Fiedorek said.
Pleasing To God
Virginia resident Mary Ann Kreitzer, who runs the Les Femmes — The Truth blog, told The Wanderer:
“The president’s address must have been very pleasing to God, and he’s backing up his words with actions. I agree that the tableau around the president with babes in arms and smiling young parents was beautiful.”
She said she had attended most of the annual marches in Washington, D.C., but this year watched on television.
“The media always say pro-lifers only care about babies before they’re born, but the truth was shown again and again both in the Rose Garden and on the Mall that pro-lifers are the ones offering hope for women in challenging situations — not just moms in trouble, but the abortion-mill workers who lead desperate lives of darkness and despair,” Kreitzer said.
She said New Jersey Republican Cong. “Chris Smith described how abortion worker Annette Lancaster couldn’t go into her freezer for years, and only after therapy, because the abortion staff called the freezer ‘the nursery’ because they stored the aborted babies’ bodies there. And they thought it was funny.
“Black humor illustrates the black hearts of abortion workers, who use it to cover up their black deeds. Thank God for those working to bring these folks back into the light through love,” Kreitzer said.
“. . . Some people argue that the march is all about politics, and politics won’t stop abortion. I say, with Holy Mother Church, that governments only have their authority by the grace of God and, as Catholics, we are called to challenge our leaders to honor God and work for the common good. The witness of the marchers and those who addressed the rally did exactly that,” she said.
“And they made it clear that their presence is first of all to exhort God’s intervention for a return to respect for all human life from conception to natural death,” Kreitzer said. “All the Masses and rosaries and holy hours that accompany the march are like incense to Heaven imploring God’s mercy! He will not be deaf to our cries!”