Image by johnhain (Oct. 2016) [Pixabay / CC0 public domain]
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I noted how Trump issued an executive order reinstating the Mexico City Policy. According to Catholic News:
Originally instituted by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, the Mexico City Policy states that foreign non-governmental organizations may not receive federal funding if they perform or promote abortions as a method of family planning.
I preceded my link with a sarcastic utterance, excepting the fourth sentence, which is a “straight” statement:
More evidence that Trump is a fake pro-lifer. He only said all that stuff to get nominated by the GOP. It was an “11th hour conversion” you see. If this is proof that he is not really pro-life, it is an odd one indeed. But the Never-Trumpers said . . . . Oh (stopping myself in shock)! You mean they’re not infallible??!!!!!
I also took a shot on Facebook at the Never-Trumpers:
The Never-Trumpers will be giving us ever more wild, extreme, implausible, and ludicrous rationalizations, whenever Trump does anything good, that they can’t deny is a good thing.
They have staked out their position as opposition, no matter what. They choose to die on this hill, come hell or high water. It’ll be entertaining to watch ’em as the Trump administration proceeds forward.
My new nickname for Never-Trumpers (I’m the king of nicknames and coined phrases) is “Never-Rational Rationalizers”.
60 million Trump voters expected this. We believed him when he said that he is now pro-life, just as we believed Reagan, who had signed an abortion bill in California, that resulted in 200,000 abortions before Roe v. Wade. We believed elder Bush when he became pro-life, just before becoming VP. He proved it in his later actions.
We also believed Bill Clinton and Al Gore when they rejected their previous ostensible pro-life position and became pro-aborts. They proved their change of heart, too.
We’re not surprised at all. But Never-Trumpers are surprised. The more they see along these lines, the more they may actually be convinced that their cynicism towards his pro-life view is misplaced. And that will be a good thing, and an encouragement to them, because the more pro-lifers the better: especially when they are Presidents.
It’s odd that he is supposedly not pro-life, yet he has Kellyanne Conway run his campaign and be a senior adviser. She will address the March for Life, and goes to Mass every day. It’s weird that he picks Mike Pence for VP: profoundly pro-life. Soon we’ll see his pick for the Supreme Court. His list of possible candidates has met with wide approval from conservative and pro-life groups.
It’s true that abortion was less of a key issue in the campaign, which is a shame, but it doesn’t follow that pro-life Trump voters didn’t think Trump was pro-life. They certainly did, which is why he got 80% of the evangelical vote: a demographic group that is heavily pro-life. He would have never gotten that support if they thought he was a pro-abort. The choice of Pence and his list of possible Supreme Court Justices were also key in showing pro-lifers that he was serious about the issue.
81 percent of white evangelical Christians still voted for Trump, as did the majority of people who attend religious services once a week or more. (Catholics were slightly more divided than born-again protestants, but 60 percent still went for Trump.)
Trump’s embrace by these groups might signal the importance of abortion—an issue on which at least a fifth of Americans say they will not compromise when voting. In 2015, 21 percent of Americans said they would only vote for a candidate who shared their abortion views, up from 13 percent in 2008.
Vice-President-elect Mike Pence’s abortion stance is well known: As governor of Indiana, he signed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation.
Nearly 60 percent of Donald Trump voters say the Republican Party platform’s “strong positions on unborn human life and religious liberty” were a key reason behind their decision to back the president-elect, according to a post-election survey released Friday.
60% of 60 million is 36 million people, who said that pro-life was key in their vote. Yet some Never-Trumpers think we’re surprised that he just did a pro-life executive order? What will convince you them that he is pro-life?!
As I’ve repeated times without number, the rape and incest and life of the mother exception clauses (that Trump holds) were also the position of Bush I, Bush II, Dole, McCain, and Romney, while Reagan supported an exception in the case of the mother’s life being in danger. It’s a legitimate criticism, but this fact needs to be pointed out, that Trump’s flawed 97% view is nothing at all new.
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