UNITED STATES – Presidential candidate Donald Trump has adjusted a statement he recently made concerning prohibiting abortive medications. In a press conference, Trump hinted he might be open to banning mifepristone, one of two drugs used as abortive medications. However, Trump’s campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, soon clarified that Trump misunderstood the question and remains committed to his earlier statements that he would not ban mifepristone.
Leavitt was not the only person on Trump’s team to respond to the controversy. Vice Presidential candidate J. D. Vance also weighed in on Trump’s statement. In a recent interview with Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan, Vance repeated the claim that Trump misheard the reporter. He also stated,
“What the president has said very clearly is that abortion policy should be made by the states…. You of course want to make sure that any medicine is safe, that it's prescribed in the right way, and so forth, but the president wants individual states to make these decisions because…. California is going to have a different abortion policy from Ohio which is going to have a different abortion policy from Alabama…. What president Trump has said is…we need to get out of the culture war side of the abortion issue. We need to let the states decide their specific abortion policy.”
The Trump campaign, RNC, and significant Republican figures are convinced that opposing abortion is a losing issue. Today’s conservatives are aggressively avoiding any questioning over abortion policy, and when forced to give an answer, reply with a vague sort of allowance, “If the states want to legislate abortion, we won’t stop them.”
Vance’s reply sounds like the typical answer expected from conservatives in recent days.
In Trump’s state of Florida, pro-abortion activists are seeking to reverse a six-week abortion ban. Overturning the ban will require a 60% majority vote. Already, a majority of Floridians back the measure. One in five Floridian women say they have had an abortion, including 19% of Democrat women and 20% of Republican women. Trump has remained silent on the issue, maintaining the position of his platform to avoid involvement in abortion discussions.
Republican strategists now recognize that the American public is not as strongly pro-life as they had believed before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Therefore, Republicans should not concentrate on abortion if they wish to win elections. This prevailing argument seems logical enough on its face. However, the moral ambiguity of conservatives has allowed pro-abortion activists to make extreme cultural gains. Without a significant societal shift toward life, it is unlikely that Republicans will ever enact any pro-life change, even if they do gain power.
Origen would subscribe (maybe?)…
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It is important to ask, then, what are conservatives actually conserving? Republicans are more concerned with conserving their power than with protecting the core principles of their movement. They have already sacrificed financial stewardship—Trump approved a massive borrowing of $8.4 trillion during his presidency. Republicans have also sacrificed the sanctity of marriage—not even a decade removed from Obergefell, around half of Republicans support same-sex marriage. Abortion is only their most recent compromise.
Their ambivalence should not be surprising to Christians. Political parties are vehicles for power. Conservatism is not synonymous with Christianity. It never was. Conservatism is an evolving philosophy heavily influenced by Christianity but guided by inconsistent men. As a result, traditional conservatism has transformed into a Christless conservatism, which only sees the notion of God as a tool within its political machine.
On the other hand, Christianity is guided by the hand of the immutable God. While some would seek to corrupt or destroy the Church, her founding principles remain firm from her beginning until the present day and will continue long after the death rattle of conservatism.
The early Church did not rely on the government to bring moral clarity to the abortion debate. They unanimously taught the sanctity of unborn human life and that the Roman tradition of abortion was a form of murderous barbarity. For those who doubt this bold claim, read Michael Gorman’s Abortion and the Early Church. Because of the Church’s influence, abortion was illegal in Christian-governed territories by the Medieval period.
Tertullian (160-240 AD) was one of the many advocates for unborn life in the early Church. Today, abortionists assert that only women should have a voice in the abortion debate. Tertullian turns that argument on its head, appealing to the natural love mothers have for their unborn children:
“In this matter the best teacher, judge, and witness is the sex that is concerned with birth. I call on you, mothers, whether you are now pregnant or have already borne children; let women who are barren and men keep silence! We are looking for the truth about the nature of woman; we are examining the reality of your pains. Tell us: Do you feel any stirring of life within you in the fetus? Does your groin tremble, your sides shake, your whole stomach throb as the burden you carry changes its position? Are not these moments a source of joy and assurance that the child within you is alive and playful? Should his restlessness subside, would you not be immediately concerned for him?”1
Abortion has made such progress in Western culture. One reason is that abortion activists take advantage of instinctual pity, “What about the rape victim, young teenager, or single mother living in poverty?” Pro-life advocates often respond with logical and scientific evidence. These are essential arguments but are usually not convincing for the average person. Tertullian shows Christians that they should not cede the ground of a compassionate case against abortion. It is the Church that has the most humane position in the abortion debate.
And yet, Christians should not merely argue against abortion—they should also vote against it when they can. Undoubtedly, Christian doctrine should guide believers at the ballot box. While no one can blame those Christians who conscientiously refuse to vote for a wavering Republican ticket, those voters should also be aware that the Democratic party is far more radical in this area, willing to legislate abortion and flirt with infanticide. Christians should vote for those politicians whose policies are most likely to aid in the furtherance of the Church and the virtue of society.
But Christians should not bind their faith to any party, politician, or agenda. Parties, politicians, and agendas change—only God, His Church, and His Word remain. Elections are not inconsequential, but they are also not eternal. The Church must not distract herself from the gift of life God offers, a gift Christian doctrine so clearly affirms.
Michael J. Gorman, Abortion & the Early Church: Christian, Jewish & Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1998), 55–56.
It’s such a precarious question: do we vote for the lesser of two evils that might still have some sensitivity to our concerns, or do we take our hands off the wheel completely and let the whole thing crash and burn? In North Korea, which used to be a stronghold of Protestant Christianity, there may only be a couple thousand secret Christians left in a nation of tens of millions of people. It really does matter if a communist takeover is allowed to happen, and it may matter for decades and decades, and generations of people who will never get the opportunity to enter freely into the worship of the true God in a church. So difficult to figure out what to do here.
I've been wary of political parties since I was in my 20s. I have friends who are active in political parties, but I can't personally sacrifice the convictional position I hold for the sake of winning an office or election.