\u201cI\u2019m voting for Trump because he\u2019s pro-life.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Hang on a moment. Trump has made vowing to build a wall across the U.S.\/Mexican border the signature mark of his campaign. He has pledged to deport eleven million undocumented immigrants. These are people who came here to build better lives, to give their children a better life than they had. And yet, at Trump rallies you hear thousands of people chanting \u201cBUILD THE WALL! BUILD THE WALL!\u201d How is stirring up anti-immigrant sentiment and promising to tear families apart \u201cpro-life\u201d?<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s different. Abortion is about life and death.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Okay, well, what about refugees? Trump has promised to bar Syrian refugees from entering our country, along with refugees from many other similarly troubled countries. In many cases these are people who have fled for their lives, escaping bombs or\u00a0soldiers who might kill them. They\u2019ve left everything. They\u2019ve lost<\/em> everything. How is shutting the door to these people \u201cpro-life\u201d?<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t understand. Trump will appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Have you seen how Donald Trump talks about women? He openly boasted about being able to sexually assault women and get away with it because he\u2019s so rich and powerful. He rates women by their appearances, and dismisses those who aren\u2019t at least a 7. He called<\/a> a lawyer who asked for a break to pump breastmilk for her baby \u201cdisgusting.\u201d He said<\/a> he would only stay with his wife if she was in a horrible car accident if her breasts were still okay<\/em>. How is any of this \u201cpro-life\u201d?<\/p>\n \u201cAbortion kills babies. That\u2019s what we\u2019re talking about\u2014killing babies.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n But what about other people whose lives are threatened by Trump and the violence he incites? Last week a gay man was assaulted<\/a> by Trump supporters who told him that if Trump is elected, people like him will become illegal. LGBT individuals often live under\u00a0the threat of violence. I have a trans friend who had to relocate a few years ago, and when she did so \u201csomewhere I will not get killed\u201d was her\u00a0number one qualification\u00a0in selecting a new place to live. Do gay and trans lives not have value?<\/p>\n \u201cTrump doesn\u2019t want anyone to kill anyone. Abortion kills people.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Actually, Trump has called for violence against protestors\u00a0on multiple occasions. \u201cIf you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?\u00a0Seriously.\u201d That is an actual thing Trump said at an actual rally. As protestors were escorted out of one of his rallies, he said this: \u201cPart of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore.\u201d Trump has refused to say that he will concede if he loses. Some of his supporters are now calling for<\/a> another revolutionary war if he loses, and he\u00a0has not condemned their actions. Trump also once said he could shoot someone dead in the middle of the street and people would still support him.\u00a0This does not sound like someone who values life<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, Trump isn\u2019t\u00a0perfect. But he says he\u00a0is\u00a0pro-life.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n No, he\u2019s really not. Look, for decades now, black Americans have suffered from racially discriminatory policing. In the last few years, the\u2019ve created a movement\u2014Black Lives Matter\u2014calling for police reform. When asked about Black Lives Matter, Trump has spoken in favor of giving police more power\u00a0and against police reform. He has called for reinstating stop and frisk, a police that was struck down by the courts for its inherently racist application. He speaks constantly of restoring \u201claw and order,\u201d a racist dog whistle that goes\u00a0back to the 1960s. He has praised police without any caveats on every occasion possible. How can someone be pro-life, and yet so cavalier about police brutality?<\/p>\n \u201cYou misunderstand me. I\u2019m talking about innocent babies.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Ah, see, that\u2019s the problem. You focus on the unborn at the expense of the born. Many people feel you care only for the unborn, you realize, because your concern seems to evaporate at the moment of birth. You put abortion ahead of every other issue. You\u2019re supporting a man who wants to shut the door to\u00a0refugees desperately searching for some place to start over, who speaks of women as objects to be consumed, who incites violence and has actually said he thinks more violence<\/em><\/a> in policing would be beneficial, just because he says he\u2019ll appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices. Can you see who that looks to the outside observer?<\/p>\n \u201cThings may not be perfect, but at least those people\u00a0have a chance to live.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Okay, let me change tact here slightly. Are you aware that the best way to reduce the number of abortions performed is to increase women\u2019s access to longterm birth control? A study conducted by Washington University found that<\/a> \u201cproviding birth control to women at no cost\u201d cut the abortion rate \u201cby a range of 62 to 78\u00a0percent compared to the national rate.\u201d When Colorado offered teens free IUDs and implants, longterm birth control with a lower fail rate than other methods, the abortion rate among teenagers\u00a0fell by 42%<\/a>. Perhaps because Democratic administrations work to improve birth control access, the abortion rate tends to fall\u00a0more dramatically under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents. Wouldn\u2019t it make sense to support the candidate who wants to improve birth control access, given that greater access to longterm birth control decreases the number of abortions performed?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not interested in letting people have free sex on the government dime.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Wow. I\u2019m going to pretend you didn\u2019t just say that. Let\u2019s talk about something else. Seven in ten women who have abortions do so at least in part for financial reasons. Six in ten already have at least one child to care for. There are women who have abortions today who would not do so if they had access to paid maternity leave, affordable childcare, a better paying job, and so forth. Making community college free would help women obtain the jobs they need to support children, nationally mandated maternity leave would help them afford to take time off to for childbirth,\u00a0government assistance for childcare would enable them to care for their children while working, and reforming welfare to allow them\u00a0to qualify while attending school\u00a0would help them obtain degrees. All of this would go a long way toward eliminating the financial pressures that influence many women\u2019s decision to abort. All of these are programs that Hillary would likely support, but Donald Trump does not.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but we can\u2019t have people mooching off the state.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Hang on a second. You just said what matters most is making sure that embryos\/fetuses that are conceived have a chance to develop and be born.\u00a0Didn\u2019t you say that that comes before anything else? If that comes before helping refugees find a place to live, ensuring that gay people don\u2019t have to live in fear of violence, and treating women as people rather than sex objects, doesn\u2019t it also<\/em> come before your concerns about premarital sex and dependence on government programs?<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s really important is getting pro-life Supreme Court justices.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Nice dodge. But I see what\u2019s going on here. You\u2019re not interested in decreasing the number of abortions being performed\u2014which would require getting at the reasons women have abortions\u2014you\u2019re just interested in banning it. There are many countries around the world where abortion is banned. Abortions still happen in those countries, at roughly the same rate<\/a>, but their maternal mortality rates are higher, and in some cases women are jailed\u00a0for having miscarriages<\/a>, or afraid to go to the hospital when they\u2019re bleeding out, whether because they\u2019ve had an abortion or because they\u2019ll afraid they\u2019ll be accused of having had one. Banning abortion does not address\u00a0the reasons women have abortions, and it won\u2019t make those reasons disappear. It just makes\u00a0obtaining an abortion more dangerous.<\/p>\n