Evangelicals’ phony outrage over Trump’s pro-abortion announcement
The decades-long battle against the abortion holocaust was supposedly over when the Supreme Court ruled to “overturn” Roe v. Wade, but past sellouts by so-called pro-life Evangelicals and the leaders of Pro-Life, Inc. have freed Donald Trump to pursue the pro-abortion policies he’s always believed in, including his recent appeal for Republicans to be “flexible” concerning abortion restrictions under the Hyde Amendment – a law that prohibits federals funds being used to pay for abortions.
Trump said earlier this week that he wants Republicans to reach a deal on health care insurance assistance by being willing to bend on a 50-year-old budget policy that bars federal money from being spent on abortion services (via Newsday):
“You have to be a little flexible” on the Hyde Amendment, Trump told House Republicans as they gathered in Washington for a caucus retreat to open the midterm election year. “You gotta be a little flexible. You gotta work something. You gotta use ingenuity.”
With his suggestion, Trump, who supported abortion rights before he entered politics in 2015, is asking conservatives to abandon or at least ease up on decades of Republican orthodoxy on abortion and spending policy — something lawmakers and conservatives pushed back on immediately.
At the same time, he is demonstrating his long-standing malleability on abortion and acknowledging that Democrats have the political upper hand on health care after Republicans, who control the White House, the Senate and the House, allowed the expiration of premium subsidies for people buying Affordable Care Act insurance policies. As negotiations on Capitol Hill continue on the matter, some Democrats are pushing to end the Hyde restrictions as part of any new agreements on health care subsidies.
Trump’s road map on the Hyde Amendment came more than an hour into a stem-winding speech intended as a part strategy session and part pep rally as Republicans attempt to maintain their threadbare House majority in the November midterms.
“We’re all big fans of everything,” he said. “But you have to have flexibility.” (Emphasis mine)
One of the first to be heard from was Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who said it would sour core conservative voters and make Republicans “sure to lose this November.” Her so-called outrage would have been worthy of consideration if not for the sellout by her organization during Trump’s 2020 campaign.
2020 was the 47th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that opened the floodgates to the “legalized” murder of unborn babies, but the “non-profit” Susan B. Anthony List announced plans to spend $52 million to reelect Donald Trump and so-called pro-life senators. Calling Trump “the most pro-life president in our nation’s history,” Mallory Quigley of Susan B. Anthony List and Women Speak Out PAC said, “[t]he stakes of this election could not be higher,” and she pledged to fight the “Democrats’ abortion radicalism.”
In 2024, so-called pro-life Evangelicals took their sellout to Trump’s pro-abortion policies to a whole new level when they told their followers that unless they are also sold-out, they would be guilty of committing a “greater evil” if they rejected Trump and the Republican Party platform — a platform that removed the pro-life issue at Trump’s request (via Christ Over All):
Can evangelicals in good conscience vote for the Republican platform since it has removed the pro-life plank? While there are other morally permissible options, I believe an evangelical can and even should still vote for Trump in good conscience, because the platform change is not pro-abortion, and the opposing party is literally setting up abortion and vasectomy to-go mobiles outside their convention hall. Furthermore, there is still only one ticket who would not sign a federal abortion bill if/when it is brought to their desk, and that is the Trump ticket. So, while Trump may veto a national abortion ban, he will also veto any national abortion law congress puts on his desk. (Emphasis mine)
Unfortunately, the writer made the decision to cave to Trump anyway using the “lesser of two evils” defense:
I am saddened that I will effectively be voting for Trump/Vance to hold the turf gained in the demolition of Roe, as opposed to casting my vote for the explicit advance toward the abolition of abortion at the federal level. But, given the option of maintaining ground vs. losing ground on this crucial issue, I am fully convinced the former is the easy and common-sense choice. As Erik Reed has said well, “Trump may allow abortion rights to gain an inch if he softens on the pro-life issue, but I believe if Harris wins, she intends to take a mile.” As someone who desires to see the lives of as many babies spared as possible over the next four years in America, while wanting this country to be in the best possible position to see abortion outlawed down the road, this is an easy call. (Emphasis mine)
Trump will allow abortion rights to expand, just not as much as Harris? That’s called incrementalism: the feel-good but failed belief that murdering a few babies is better than murdering a lot of them.
It was a bald-faced lie to claim that “turf [was] gained in the demolition of Roe.” Despite Trump’s so-called victory over abortion, the holocaust has not only continued, but it has also returned to levels not seen in years.
When Donald Trump, who touts himself as the “most pro-life president ever,” called Florida’s six-week abortion ban a “terrible thing and a terrible mistake,” many called him out for his failure to defend the unborn, but not Dr. Robert Jeffress. This founding member of The Fellowship of the Pharisees showed that he was more than willing to sacrifice a few unborn babies on the altar of Trumpism.
Trump, Jeffress insisted at the time, was still “very pro-life” but was simply “pointing out a political reality” — namely, the unpopularity of abortion bans and the challenge of passing a federal ban. “If there’s going to be a national ban on abortion,” Jeffress said, “there’s going to be some sort of compromise or consensus for legislation to be enacted.”
When Jeffress was asked how this applied Trump’s criticism of Florida’s abortion ban as a “terrible thing,” he suggested that Trump’s remarks be viewed through the “prism of how we’re going to get a consensus.”
When Trump calls for flexibility, what he’s really calling for is compromise, and this reminds me of a scene in the movie Kingdom of Heaven, where Queen Sibylla tries to convince Balian to reconsider his decision not to join in a plot to kill her evil husband and prevent him from assuming the throne when her brother dies, then marry her and become king for the good of Jerusalem. When he rejects her again, she says these words as he walks away:
Sibylla: “You say no…”
Balian: “Do you think I’m like Guy (pronounced Gee), that I would sell my soul?”
Sibylla: “There’ll be a day, when you will wish you had done a little evil to do a greater good.”
A little evil for a greater good? This is the attitude of Trumpists, including those who call themselves evangelicals, and is the true spirit of those who call Trump “God’s Man.” They are heretics using “religious” political rhetoric to call good evil and evil good in a vain attempt to justify their political and spiritual laziness.
In another scene from the movie, Balian is again pressured to reconsider his decision not to join in the plot against Guy, this time by Tiberius, a knight in the King’s service. After all, such a compromise would be for the greater good.
Tiberias: “Who is he that you save his life? He’s a man who hates you, who has insulted you…I play Devil…but for the salvation of this kingdom. Compromise yourself. Jerusalem does not need ‘a perfect knight.’ This is the world.”
Balian: “No. It is a kingdom of conscience or nothing.”
In a culture dominated by moral relativism and ethical compromise, America has become a nation unwilling to make value judgements, and this is particularly true when it comes to the cultural issues of our time, such as abortion. However, once the leaders of a nation compromise their morals, they surrender the right to lead, and those who follow them are led to ruin and destruction.
To defeat the abortion holocaust, we must reject the phony outrage of Evangelicals and Pro-Life, Inc. over Trump’s pro-abortion policies.
It’s a kingdom of conscience . . .or nothing!
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He is the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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