Pro-Life Leadership From the White House Can Change the Course of History. Reagan Did It, and So Can Trump
It has been well-reported that the number of abortions in America has dwindled to below the number of abortions in 1973, the year Roe vs. Wade was decided. But one chart shows how extremely important pro-life leadership in the White House can change the course of history.
The Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade encouraged millions of women to have abortions under the assumption that it was a right guaranteed to them by the United States Constitution. That decision was an absolute abomination and as the number of abortions rose exponentially in the first years after the decision, so too did the moral outrage in the hearts and minds of the people. But in 1980 that number reversed course, and the election of Ronald Reagan just might have changed history.
Ronald Reagan made pro-life arguments every single time the issue of abortion came up in his campaign for president. In one debate against John Anderson, who ran as an independent, (then-President Carter declined the debate) a question having to do with whether a president should be guided by organized religion on issues such as abortion was asked. Reagan defended the GOP platform and stated:
The litmus test that John says is in the Republican platform, says no more than the judges to be appointed should have a respect for innocent life. Now, I don’t think that’s a bad idea. I think all of us should have a respect for innocent life. With regard to the freedom of the individual for choice with regard to abortion, there’s one individual who’s not being considered at all. That’s the one who is being aborted. And I’ve noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born. I think that, technically, I know this is a difficult and an emotional problem, and many people sincerely feel on both sides of this, but I do believe that maybe we could find the answer through medical evidence, if we would determine once and for all, is an unborn child a human being? I happen to believe it is.
Reagan stated his pro-life views at a time when abortion was wildly popular, in fact, the most popular in all of American history. His courage in stating his views and connecting with the American people might just have turned the tide on the issue.
What many do not remember about back then was that large numbers of so-called “establishment Republicans” at the time embraced the Supreme Court’s ruling. They accepted it as the “law of the land” and wanted to move on from the issue. Indeed, President George H.W. Bush was a pro-abortion Republican as were Presidents Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon. Ronald Reagan was considered by these pro-abortion Republicans during the 1980 campaign to be “backward” on the issue. Still, he was able to make a clear case for life which helped him harness the issue for the American people.
Reagan biographer Craig Shirley characterized the leadership of Ronald Reagan at this point in history. As he said in an email, “Reagan not only freed millions behind the Iron Curtain but he also saved countless lives by being the first president to put a spotlight on the horrors of abortion.” Ever since, the Republican Party has been pro-life.
That’s why it’s so heartening to see Donald Trump take up the torch of life and run with it.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump’s comments on the subject of abortion were hard to sift through. If he wasn’t going over the top — for example, when he said that the woman has to have some sort of punishment, which made every pro-lifer cringe and denounce him — he was muddling the issue on the importance of defunding Planned Parenthood. Many conservatives had a very difficult time trying to figure out just what he would do as president. But only two weeks into his presidency, Trump has already done some significant things on the pro-life front.
First, Trump knocked down International Planned Parenthood’s recent eight-year-stint of population control experiments worldwide by reinstating Ronald Reagan’s Mexico policy. There has been many accolades for this move, but in fairness, George W. Bush also reinstated the policy when he took office. Trump then nominated a justice for the Supreme Court who has taken a clear pro-life position, even writing, “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and that the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”
I would challenge Donald Trump to further the pro-life movement by taking a strong stand on defunding Planned Parenthood. The reinstatement of Reagan’s Mexico City policy is good, really good, but it doesn’t go far enough and people may have it confused with actually defunding the private abortion corporation. There should be no quarter given to an organization as heinous as that one exposed by the Center for Medical Progress as profiting off of the death of millions of children who would not receive a decent burial. Instead, they are used as parts ready to be sold to the highest bidder. The American people clearly are turning away from abortion, they should certainly not be funding the nation’s largest provider and butcher shop.
Presidential leadership is often the key to attitudinal changes. If Donald Trump didn’t convince many that his intentions were true on the issue of life, he may be well on his way. But now that the number of abortions has dropped so significantly, it would be a mistake to believe the issue has taken care of itself.
President Trump must take a cue from Ronald Reagan, remember the American people who, during his campaign, so strongly demanded the defunding of Planned Parenthood, and encourage the Republican Congress to listen to the people who gave them the majority. (For more from the author of “Pro-Life Leadership From the White House Can Change the Course of History. Reagan Did It, and So Can Trump” please click HERE)
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