It has to be said: If Donald Trump had not been elected president of the United States, Neil Gorsuch would not be on the Supreme Court. And if Merrick Garland had been confirmed as a Supreme Court justice instead of Gorsuch, the pro-life movement would have suffered a devastating loss today, instead of a 5-4 ruling that the state of California cannot force crisis pregnancy centers to advertise abortions. If Hillary Clinton had been president, religious liberty, freedom of speech, and the right to life would be under nearly incessant attack from the courts. Instead, the Left is melting down while Donald Trump actually follows through on his promises to pro-life leaders.
A brief survey of social media indicates that progressives understand this, too. Even if Trump is a one-term president, he is currently reshaping the judiciary with hardline conservative justices. Abortion activists are furious that their 2015 law that forced pregnancy centers to provide information on how to obtain abortions as well as highlighting whether or not they provided medical services were overturned, regardless of the fact that allowing the government to compel speech is extraordinarily dangerous precedent to set. Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal organizations smeared by the morally bankrupt Southern Poverty Law Center as a “hate” group, has now won 9 victories at the Supreme Court in 7 years.
In addition to the courts, the Trump Administration has been pushing back against pro-abortion forces abroad, too. In the raucous fighting over trade wars, many did not notice that in the leadup to G7 summit in Quebec, Trump officials spiked language in formal declarations that cited abortion as an essential to women’s health and empowerment that Justin Trudeau had attempted to get included. At the United Nations, the American delegation prompted the re-opening of negotiations over the annual humanitarian resolution of the Economic and Social Council in order to ensure that the resolution would not advance abortion as an international right in humanitarian law. Both at home and abroad, the Trump Administration is genuinely working hard to push back against abortion activists and to implement pro-life policies.
Many pro-life and pro-family leaders decided to gamble on Donald Trump despite well-reasoned opposition (much of it still applicable) from sincere and honorable conservatives. It is impossible to look at what has been happening on the pro-life front, and at the Supreme Court victory today, and conclude that they were wrong. Mitch McConnell deserves enormous credit for blocking the confirmation of Merrick Garland as Antonin Scalia’s replacement, Trump deserves credit for appointing Neil Gorsuch, and we can all hope that the progressives on Twitter agonizing about the potential of an incoming threat to Roe v. Wade are correct in their fears.
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For anyone interested, my book on The Culture War, which analyzes the journey our culture has taken from the way it was to the way it is and examines the Sexual Revolution, hook-up culture, the rise of the porn plague, abortion, commodity culture, euthanasia, and the gay rights movement, is available for sale here.
