I had an unpleasant encounter yesterday. A group of
pro-lifers were engaged in a debate about how pro-lifers should respond to
Trump’s racism. It was a fiery and interesting debate. But there was a guy who
participated, denouncing Trump – as I do – and his allies – which I consider a
key battleground. After quite a bit of back and forth, it came out that this
guy was not asking pro-lifers to pull away from Trump; he was asking pro-lifers
to forget about abortion. He was strengthening the ties between pro-lifers and
Trump, insisting that they are natural allies. I was appalled. Some pro-lifers stick
to Trump because they believe that – like it or not – Trump is the key to
stopping abortion in the USA, and to achieve that goal they will put up with just
about anything. So telling pro-lifers to dump-Trump-and-forget-abortion
strengthens Trump. I thought the guy was among the most effective pro-Trump voice
I’d encountered.
Let me clarify why I am a pro-lifer opposing Trump. This is
a sketch, but 1400+ words.
First: NSSM 200.
I don’t think Roe v. Wade was the most violent document ever
penned. I think NSSM 200 launched far more abortions that RvW. National
Security Study Memorandum 200 was a definition of threats to American security,
written by officials in the Nixon and Ford administrations. “Security” here doesn’t
mean money in the bank; it’s diplomatic language for the things about which this
nation is prepared to go to war. The document said that our deadly enemies
were:
n
Commies in Europe, to be fended off by the
military;
n
Commies around the Pacific Rim, also to be
fended off by the military;
n
Commie propaganda in Latin America, to be
resisted by the CIA; and
n
African women having babies, to be stopped by the
Agency for International Development.
Under these two Republican presidents – and everyone since
until NSSM 200 was scrapped in – hm, hm, was it scrapped? – our enemies were
Commies and black babies. To stop them, we had nukes and abortion. I
over-simplify, but you see the point.
The take-away: NSSM 200 led to far more abortion than RvW.
Pro-lifers who focus on RvW are dilettantes, overlooking most of the abortions
launched by the USA. We started abortion globally, and we have to stop it globally.
Abortion inside America – the whole RvW thing – is about 2% of the abortion
problem.
Second, Sherri Finkbine.
The propaganda push for abortion in the USA did not begin
with RvW. The propaganda push began with Sherri Finkbine. She had a TV show in
the 1950s, called “Romper Room,” a popular kids show sort of like “Mister
Rogers” or “Sesame Street.” She took thalidomide, a sedative that was used then
to treat morning sickness. But then news broke that thalidomide was “teratogenic”:
it caused serious birth defects, including severely shortened limbs. Parents
were afraid their kids would be born with flippers, not arms. So Sherri
Finkbine, the Mrs. Mister Rogers of the decade, went to Sweden to get an abortion.
And wasn’t it awful that she had to go across the Atlantic to avoid having a
disfigured baby.
Two quick lessons. The push for abortion in the USA began
with eugenics. And abortion cannot be considered a national problem; it was international
before RvW.
Third, population control.
Population control isn’t a sideshow; it’s most of the
abortion battle. And a detail of population control is now and always has been
immigration restrictions. When Hitler was trying to wipe out the Jews, some
fled to the United States. But our immigration policy sent some back to Hitler’s
camps; you can get a list of some of the people who saw Miami, weren’t allowed
in, and went back to Europe to get killed. When the Chinese launched a
one-child-only depopulation policy, some women fled to the USA. We debated whether
to let them in: a prolife policy and pro-immigration policy overlapped, and
most pro-lifers saw it clearly. The same thing is going on now. Women are
fleeing from depopulation policies – and other violence. Will we protect women
and children? To me, that’s a no-brainer. I simply do not recognize this new “pro-life”
movement that turns away pregnant women at the border. What happened to you?
Fourth, Lopez Trujillo and the Mexican Yellow Pages.
I had a squabble one year with the head of the Pontifical Council
for the Family. He hosted a pro-life conference in Rome, and during the
conference, I invited participants to meet to pray outside an abortion clinic
at a hospital close by. He was appalled, and wanted my boss to ship me out of
Rome promptly. In the ensuing discussion, one of the details that emerged was
that he wanted good laws on the books, but didn’t care much what actually
happened. In Mexico, for example, the law about abortion at that time was pretty
good (from a pro-lifer’s perspective), and he wanted that. But abortions were
advertised in Las Paginas Amarillas. The law was unenforced; it meant nothing.
I thought reality mattered more than the damn law. He wasn’t interested in
that; he wanted good laws.
Many Irish pro-lifers are as blind as Cardinal Lopez
Trujillo. They are focused on preventing abortion in Ireland. That’s a good
interim goal, but banning abortion in Ireland might not save a single child and
family, not one. You can get from Ireland to England and back for the price of
a carton of cigarettes. It’s a nuisance, and an added expense: killing Irish
citizens in England takes several extra hours and adds maybe 20% to the price
tag. Stopping abortion in Ireland, completely, has almost no connection with protecting
Irish babies; it’s a tiny first step, no more.
The lesson: there’s a difference between (a) protective laws
on the books and (b) actually protecting mothers and babies. They aren’t
completely unrelated, but they are not the same thing. If you fail to change the
thinking and habits of a pro-choice society, changing the law is almost
meaningless. (Also impossible, but that’s a different issue.)
Fifth, the father’s failures.
One of the many appalling crises facing Americans today is
that white males have lost their sense of purpose and identity. Schools across
the nation stare at the stats, baffled. Every demographic group in the nation
is improving from one year to the next on test scores – some groups with large
gaps still to overcome, but there’s steady improvement. Every group is
improving, except one. While males, starting at the top, have been declining slowly
but steadily for years. Their scores are not declining relative to other
scores: that is, the decline is not really just another way to say that
everyone else is improving. No. While male scores are declining this year
relative to white male scores last year, year after year. Why? Your guess is
probably about as good as anyone’s.
I think that a piece of the problem is that a huge portion
of the men in the nation – a quarter, more or less – are parents of a dead
child. So are the women, but there’s been a lot of thought given to that. For
men, I think that the test scores at school point to an unexplained problem,
and men’s total failure at their first duty in life may be a partial
explanation. What did you do when your first child was scheduled to die?
Nothing. You bottled it up, got depressed. Maybe you did your best to cherish
and support your partner in her crisis. But your child?
There’s no quick fix to that problem. But one detail that is
clear, that men can address now: you can work to ensure that women don’t have
abortions because they feel trapped and abused. That’s not the whole issue, but
it’s a real part, and it’s fixable. So when someone attacks a woman, and makes
her feel stupid or helpless, step in. You can’t protect a child unless the
child’s mother feels empowered. When some male monster says it’s okay to grab
pussy, fix his thinking; you may be saving a child’s life. That kind of
thinking and language isn’t just a little gross, a little naughty, a little
juvenile; it’s deadly. I don’t know what “fight” means to you; but when
somebody talks about grabbing pussy, a child’s life is in danger. Fight. Fight
for children, and for women, and for dignity, and for the future, and for everything
on earth that has value.
Enough. Each point here deserves a book, but my overall
point is clear and simple: pro-lifers should oppose Trump. Opposing Trump is
not the same thing as abandoning the pro-life movement. I’m a pro-lifer, AND SO
I oppose Trump with everything in me.