CV NEWS FEED // Catholic leaders in the pro-life movement weighed in on former President Donald Trump’s Monday announcement that abortion should be a state issue.
“The states will determine by vote, or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land – in this case, the law of the state,” stated Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican Presidential nominee.
“Many states will be different,” he added. “Many states will have a different number of weeks … at the end of the day it is all about the will of the people.”
Also in his announcement, Trump expressed support for in vitro fertilization (IVF) saying, “The Republican Party should always be on the side of the miracle of life … IVF is an important part of that.”
“The federal government cannot abandon women and children exploited by abortion. Leaving abortion policy to the states is not sufficient,” CatholicVote wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Monday morning.
“While federal legislation on abortion policy is challenging at present, we are confident that a Trump administration will be staffed with pro-life personnel committed to pro-life policies, including conscience rights, limits on taxpayer funding of abortion, and protections for pro-life states,” CatholicVote added:
President Trump’s latest statement on abortion reflects the electoral minefield created by Democrat abortion fanaticism. The fact remains that pro-life voters need to win elections to protect mothers and children.
Further, Democrats are now preparing a billion-dollar election year barrage with radical abortion as its centerpiece. While Trump did not commit to any specific pro-life policies, he notably will not stand in the way of states that have acted to protect innocent children from the violent abortion industry.
“The contrast between Joe Biden and the Democrats and President Trump is unmistakable,” CatholicVote’s statement concluded. “Pro-life voters have only one option in November.”
Students For Life America President Kristan Hawkins indicated that while she supports a pro-life law at the national level, Trump’s decision to punt on endorsing one was a “strategic position.”
“GOP insiders were calling for a 15 or 16 week limit on abortion, which would’ve allowed more than 9 out of 10 abortions to continue, and, by either intent or by accident, would set up a very tough European-like stalemate on abortion,” Hawkins explained on X.
She wrote that Trump’s emphasis on addressing abortion at the state level “keeps the pressure on Democrats and their abortion extremism instead of letting their fundraising machines stir up their radical base over threats about a [federal] late-term abortion ‘ban’ that would only save 4-6% of children.”
“Our ultimate goal in the pro-life movement is federal protection of human life,” Hawkins added. “Your human right not to be killed shouldn’t begin or end at a state line. However, it’s going to take time to get there.”
“Trump made the right call – and this leaves room for better action to be taken down the road,” she stressed.
However, LiveAction foundress Lila Rose disagreed.
“Killing babies is always wrong,” she wrote on X. “President Trump is not a pro-life candidate.”
“He’s far less pro-abortion than Biden,” she conceded, “but he supports killing some preborn children and will even make that his position in an attempt to get pro-abortion votes.”
“President Trump also says that abortion should come down to the ‘will of the people,’” she went on:
It is not right for democratic societies to vote on the fundamental rights of unpopular minorities. There is no more unpopular minority today than preborn Americans. Abortion is not about the “will of the people,” it’s about respecting the human right that we are endowed with by our creator. Our rights come from God, not the government.
Those rights do not change because of the circumstances of our conception. Children conceived in rape do not deserve to be killed. Children conceived in IVF do not deserve to be killed, frozen indefinitely or subjected to lethal science experiments.
At the end of her lengthy post, Rose urged Trump to reconsider his abortion stance. “Over 2,500 children are killed in our nation every day,” she wrote. “They deserve legal protection, and our moment demands a champion who is not afraid to fight for them.”
Pro-life activist and former Planned Parenthood executive Abby Johnson reacted with a much shorter X post.
“This is your reminder that politicians don’t decide when life begins. God does,” Johnson wrote. “It begins at conception.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said that she and her organization “are deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position.”
“Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry,” she added in a statement. “The Dobbs decision clearly allows both states and Congress to act.”
“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy,” Dannenfelser continued. “If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights.”
“With lives on the line, SBA Pro-Life America and the pro-life grassroots will work tirelessly to defeat President Biden and extreme congressional Democrats,” she emphasized.
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