Former President Donald Trump has caused quite a stir among the pro-life movement in recent months as he has openly tried to moderate on abortion and promised that it should be resolved at the state level.
Trump's very public break with the more vocally pro-life wings of the Republican coalition has led some pro-life activists and commentators to suggest the former president will lose their vote this November because a vote for Trump will functionally be no different than a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, who promises to restore national legality to abortion.
While I would argue that this view is extremely shortsighted and subjects Trump to a criticism that none of his Republican predecessors faced — the only reason Roe v. Wade survived as long as it did was because of Republican appointees — the case for the pro-life movement to back Trump at this point has little to do with abortion legality and more to do with the ability to oppose abortion publicly.
Since the administration of President Joe Biden took office 3 1/2 years ago, the Department of Justice has pursued a regime of lawfare against the pro-life movement that only accelerated after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
The instrument of this political persecution has been the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE, which has been quite deliberately wielded in a partisan fashion against peaceful pro-life protesters at abortion clinics.
The law, which was passed in 1994, prohibits vandalism or other forms of physical violence against abortion clinics, as well as blocking the entrances to said clinics. But oddly, the law also applies the same prohibition to churches and other houses of worship. The wording of the law is also such that it applies to pregnancy centers and similar clinics that do not provide abortions.
But unsurprisingly, the Biden administration, with rare exception, has applied the law only in connection to abortion clinics despite the scores of churches and pro-life pregnancy centers that have been victims of vandalism, arson, and threats.
Just this month, seven pro-life activists in Michigan, including 89-year-old Eva Edl, a World War II death camp survivor, were convicted of violating the FACE Act for peacefully protesting outside an abortion clinic. The administration tried to imprison a father of seven children in Philadelphia for 10 years because he pushed an abortion clinic volunteer away who was harassing his son, but that was thankfully stopped by a jury. Still, many other pro-life activists have not been so fortunate.
In Nashville, Tennessee, earlier this year, another group of activists that also included Edl were convicted of violating the FACE Act for singing hymns and praying outside the entrance to an abortion clinic.
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This should be more than enough reason to vote for Trump on pro-life grounds. These politically motivated prosecutions will come to an immediate end in another Trump administration, and the actual violence perpetrated against churches and crisis pregnancy centers will finally be prosecuted.
Trump has always been an imperfect champion for the pro-life cause. He famously supported abortion prior to his presidential run in 2016. But it is thanks to him that Roe v. Wade was overturned and that the effort to ban abortion nationwide can even begin. Regardless of what abortion-related bills he will or won't sign, the persecution of the pro-life movement will come to a swift end should he return to the Oval Office. And that is reason enough for the pro-life movement to vote for him.
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