Gosh, I'm worried about all those "pro-life people who have absolutely sold out to Trump and have lied to defend him." You continue, "That is not remotely defensible and such people should not be trusted in the future." The statements confer a lot of suspicion and judgment on a lot of people, which, in my opinion, will make any future unity a pipedream. Believe it or not, there are a lot of sincere Trump supporters who really do care about the future of the country for our children and grandchildren. I will continue to pray.
I never said there are no sincere Trump supporters. Read my actual words more carefully. I did say that a lot of people have literally lied while defending him, and that we shouldn't trust those people. That we shouldn't trust liars. If your accusation is that I sound "suspicious" of those people, then we are on the same page. Of course we should be suspicious of liars.
HOW THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT CAN SAVE ITSELF The pro-life movement has suffered a serious disappointment: when real-time in utero imaging techniques became mainstream, pro-lifers happily predicted that Americans would finally see that fetuses are live human persons, and convert en masse to pro-life. This has not happened. What has happened instead is, a new category or position or faction on abortion has sprung up: those who are BOTH pro-choice AND pro-life. Polls which allow respondents to choose both labels for themselves consistently find that a large plurality choose "both". One poll found 43% did. These "both" folks agree that fetuses are live human persons, but support abortion rights anyway. To them, abortion is homicide, but when it is done at the request of the womb-owner, it is righteous, justifiable homicide. So even (most of) the pro-lifers are pro-choice. How should pro-lifers respond to this? The pro-life movement needs to abandon the effort to prevent abortions by using force, law, or threat to punish women for having abortions or to punish doctors for doing abortions. The pro-life movement needs to purge itself of its coercive wing, and restrict itself entirely to trying to prevent abortions exclusively by means which do not violate the womb-owner's rights: by persuasion and reward. Until it does this, the pro-life movement will remain a permanent minority, and will continue to create more opposition to itself than support for itself. Americans will never tolerate the possibility that an ordinary woman, someone they might know, could be compelled by her government to grow an unwelcome pregnancy and to endure full-term labor and delivery against her will, giving birth to a baby she does not want. But many women feel sorry for the babies and may be open to persuasion. Persuasive efforts should be honest and respectful. Attempting to scare women away from the abortions they want by spreading medical lies, such as the lies that abortions cause breast-cancer, fertility problems, or severe mental-health problems, do more harm than good to the pro-life movement. They cause potentially persuadable people to write you off and tune you out. Americans are not stupid and the truth about these medical lies is easy to find The tone should be: "we recognize your right to kill your fetus so long as it is located inside your body, and doing so will most likely not harm you in any way, but you should grow your pregnancy, because your fetus is a person which has never intentionally done anything wrong." Or something like that.
I appreciate your sincere, deeply-held concern for the well-being of the pro-life movement. But can you find me one public poll that shows a non-trivial segment of Americans viewing abortion as justifiable homicide? Just from observation, everyone that seriously thinks fetuses are persons yet supports abortion on a bodily rights basis eventually either ends up pro-life or ends up in federal prison (yes, there's a story there). The polls I've seen consistently show most people support limiting abortion to the first trimester, or placing even more restrictions than that (depending on how the question is worded). Since bodily-rights arguments imply abortion should be legal in all cases, I don't think that's consistent with how the vast majority see the issue.
A few years ago, there was a guy called Theodore Shulman. He stalked and threatened several pro-life bloggers, eventually being arrested by the FBI and sentenced to 41 months in prison. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/04/theodore-shulman-arrested-indictment-death-threats Anyway, in his blog comments he repeatedly indicated that a fetus is a person with the right to life but that abortion is a form of justifiable homicide. Very strange character. From what I've heard, he was creepy as hell but thoughtful and very intelligent.
I followed the Shulman case as it unfolded. He certainly did not "stalk" anyone, and an argument can be made that he didn't actually threaten anyone either. The latter argument may or may not be valid. The argument is: his "threatening communications" never said that HE, Shulman, intended to harm anyone or to cause anyone to be harmed; they only indicated his belief that SOMEONE was likely to do so, either explicitly, by saying "SOMEONE is gonna [harm/attack/kill] [name]", or by saying, in the passive voice, "[Name] WILL BE [harmed/attacked/killed]" but not saying BY WHOM. So, grammatically, those were PREDICTIONS and/or WARNINGS, not threats. Is that argument valid? Well, there has been at least one case since then which would support it: the case of Angel Dillard, who sent a scary letter to an abortion-doc named Myla Means. A few years after Dr. Tiller was murdered, Dr. Means proposed to start doing abortions in his old building, and Dillard sent her a letter warning that if she did, she would be targeted. The letter was quite explicit, it said, among other things, that Dr. Means would have to check under her car for bombs every morning. But, Dillard eventually got off scott-free, without even paying a fine, because she had not threatened to harm anyone herself. On the other hand, the counter-argument is: the legal definition of a threat depends on how a hypothetical "reasonable person" would feel upon reading the communication, not on the actual grammatical content of the communication itself. By that standard, some of Shulman's communications almost certainly would have qualified as threats. Shulman eventually pleaded guilty in order to avoid the "trial-penalty", which is: if you go to trial, the prosecution often files numerous additional charges, which can include charges unrelated to the original crime--an accused drug-dealer who goes to trial may find himself also charged with domestic violence or something; also, judges typically sentence you much more harshly for being found guilty of a crime than for pleading guilty to the same crime. Between the extra charges and the extra time-per-charge you get for going to trial, you can find yourself serving literally TEN TIMES longer if you go to trial than if you plead down. Also, the statistics are very much against you: more than 95% of Federal trials end in a conviction. So it is VERY UNWISE to go to trial if you get charged with a Federal crime. I agree that Shulman appears to be kind of a creepy guy. Following the case, I had the impression that it amuses him to appear so. I think he would have liked to have been a monster-actor like Anthony Hopkins or Vincent Price or Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee or Gustav Neidlinger.
First of all, those who want SOME abortions to be illegal are not a minority but already a majority. Due to certain political realities in the US, abortion issues are not being resolved in a way that is strictly democratic. Secondly, the "avoid remaining a permanent minority" part just relates to a means to an end. The goal is preventing abortions (and for many pro-lifers also preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place). Via the avenue you suggest (restricting the movement to moral suasion), we could probably form a majority even regarding early-term abortions, but at a cost -- the cost of restricting ourselves to a toothless method (moral suasion). We would have a broader base, but would restrict ourselves to a toothless method. And because the method would be obviously toothless, the base would probably be less energized. Is it obvious to you that your approach would be more successful in preventing abortions? It's not to me. What is your case for thinking that it would be? For one thing, it seems to me that if we do not demand legal protections for unborn persons similar to those we would demand for born persons, we will appear to believe that the unborn are not really persons, which will undermine even our efforts at moral suasion. Laws affect culture, just as culture affects laws. Rebecca Haschke does pro-life outreach on college campuses. In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuONbERruPc, she said: I’ve talked to students on campus, though, when we talk about abortion – their reasoning for why abortion is okay is because the law says it’s okay. And I ask them, “Should the law be what determines what is right and wrong?,” and they'll be like “Well, yeah, it does.” And then I cringe and I say, “Well, have we ever had laws that have been unjust?” And then they go, “Yeah, we have.” . . . the law does sometimes make people think . . . it influences people’s thoughts. In 2005 the Los Angeles Times http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/58965:offering-abortion-rebirth. She regrets having to pay $750 for the abortion, but Amanda says she does not doubt her decision. "It's not like it's illegal. It's not like I'm doing anything wrong," she says. At a pro-life conference in Orange, Calif. in September 2014, the president of the National Right-to-Life Committee remarked, We often hear, "If it hadn't been legal, I wouldn't have done it." [Edit: In a 1996 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj1y6NGwqYk with Naomi Wolf, Helen Alvare said (at 18:13): The basis for the [pro-life] moral position is that it is the taking of a human life. In other arenas in society where the taking of a human life is concerned, the law also enters. If it DOESN'T enter, that is the anomaly, that's the strange thing! So the very basis for the moral position leads. . . . The moral and legal have to go in tandem.]
You are right that many Americans support restrictions on late-term abortions--until someone they know needs one. RE: "it seems to me that if we do not demand legal protections for unborn persons similar to those we would demand for born persons, we will appear to believe that the unborn are not really persons," Exactly! Unborn persons should have the same protections, and the same rights, which already born persons have. If an already-born person is allowed to do something, then an unborn person should be allowed to do the same thing. Conversely, if an already-born person is NOT allowed to do something, then unborn people should NOT be allowed to do that thing either. Do we agree on this? Equal rights and protections for unborn persons, but no SPECIAL rights or protections for anyone. Are you with me so far? Now tell me: are already-born persons allowed to be located, or to have any part of themselves located, inside another person's body when unwelcome there? Answer "yes" or "no" here: ____. Therefore, should an unborn person be allowed to be located inside another person's body when unwelcome there? Copy your answer from the previous blank here: _____. And tell me: are already-born persons allowed to share the contents of another person's bloodstream without ongoing permission from that other person to do so? Answer "yes" or "no" here: __. Therefore, should an unborn person be allowed to share the contents of its mother's bloodstream without ongoing permission from her to do so? Copy your answer from the previous blank here: __. And tell me: are already-born persons allowed to subject another person to an avoidable major medical/surgical trauma against that other person's will? Answer "yes" or "no" here: ___. Therefore, should an unborn person be allowed to cause its mother to suffer a preventable full-term labor and delivery against her will? Copy your answer from the previous blank here: ____. "Equal rights and protections" for unborn persons won't get you what you want. In order to justify a ban against abortion, you need to justify SPECIAL rights and SPECIAL protections for unborn persons. It's not clear how you will be able to do that. But a first step would be to stop pretending that you are only asking for equal rights and protections, and be honest about what you are really demanding.
First of all, I said, "legal protections for unborn persons similar to those we would demand for born persons." A legal protection means a penalty consequent upon a violation of some law. Killing a born person is penalized; killing an unborn person should be penalized somewhat similarly. (For the dissimlarities in penalties, please see my http://www.noterminationwithoutrepresentation.org/pro-lifers-dont-really-believe-that-zygotes-are-persons/.) So what I said was about penalties. I never said that the somewhat similar penalties, in two different situations, would be underlain by exactly the same philosophical justification. Secondly, though you wrote --
Equal rights and protections -- in your second paragraph, and even wrote --
"Equal rights and protections" -- with quote marks in your last para, I intentionally never said "equal," I said "similar." In light of all of the above taken together, all of your questions, as you have literally framed them, are irrelevant, I believe. In spirit if not literally, however, you have some reasonable questions about my consistency of thought, and I think you will find satisfactory answers in my http://www.noterminationwithoutrepresentation.org/bodily-rights-and-a-better-idea/. That article ends with a section Special-Rights Pleading. You once read that section and had some objection. Thereafter, as I told you at the time, I made a clarification in that section which I think successfully addresses your objection.
You are right that many Americans support restrictions on late-term abortions--until someone they know needs one. Literally you are saying that that last proviso is true for ALL Americans who support restrictions on late-term abortions. I am an American who supports restrictions on late-term abortions (and early-term abortions). I have never been aware that anyone I personally knew was seeking a late-term abortion, but I have counseled people whom I knew against early-term abortions, so certainly I would do no less regarding a late-term abortion. Now, I said that no one I personally knew was seeking a late-term abortion. You used the word needs. I certainly wouldn't argue with anyone who needs an abortion, and neither would 99% of the Americans who support restrictions. If you believe that a proviso "until someone they know seeks a late-term abortion," which as I've shown certainly doesn't hold for ALL Americans who support restrictions on late-term abortions, would even significantly change the statistics that you acknowledge, what is your evidence for that belief of yours?
RE: "Killing a born person is penalized; killing an unborn person should be penalized somewhat similarly." Killing an already-born person is NOT ALWAYS penalized, nor should it be. Even killing an INNOCENT already-born person is not always penalized: a criminally-insane person whose illness compels him to attack you is innocent by reason of insanity, but you're still allowed to use lethal self-defense against him. RE: "and I think you will find satisfactory answers in my "Bodily Rights and a Better Idea"." Have you cleaned up the writing and made it readable yet? I gave you instructions and a useful example on how to do so. OK, I looked at the "Special pleading" section. You seem to have added:
...rather than “special-rights pleading,” it would be more accurate to say that the truest defense of a pro-life position rests simply on the intuition that the developing child in the womb deserves a certain degree of protection, and that any hypothetical innocent person in the womb, causing no more harm than a developing child in a normal pregnancy, would deserve the same degree of protection. That's dishonest and misleading. What's misleading is the word "protection". Preventing abortion does more than just protect the fetus. Preventing abortion also enables a fetus to remain located inside another person's body when unwelcome there, and to share the contents of another person's bloodstream without ongoing permission, and to inflict a major medical/surgical trauma upon her against her will. An innocent already-born who happens to have somehow made his way into the other person's womb without losing his innocence may be entitled to the same protection he was entitled to when he was outside, but that doesn't entitle him to the special body-access/body-traumatizing privileges which right-to-lifers are trying to secure for fetuses, any more than he was entitled to them when he was outside. So you're still special-pleading for special rights for fetuses, but you're pretending you're not, by misleadingly describing those special rights as "protection" and by falsely equating them with the right to protection which non-fetuses enjoy. So still no cigar, AND, a penalty for dishonestly mischaracterizing your moral intuition.
I am sick at heart about this election. I appreciate the thoughtful discussion here as I have not been able to find any sincere prolifer who has not already made their decision. I have pro life friends in both camps. I pray for God's guidance. Most of my friends who will vote for Trump say they will do it for the Supreme Court. I fear that if I refrain from voting for the presidential and vice presidential office, I had better keep it to myself or I might lose their friendship. My friends who will vote Democrat have encouraged me to vote 3rd party or write someone in but I realize that doing so will be like voting for Clinton. I cannot in good conscience vote for either Trump orClinton. I don't know how I could explain myself to God. I have pretty much decided to vote for local pro life candidates only. I have even decided against early voting just in case something might happen at the last moment that would necessitate either or both parties choosing a different candidate. ( I know that is far-fetched but it could happen) I hope that the pro life movement does not fracture, but I fear it may. l will follow your blog to see what's happening in your area. In the end, Love wins. God is just as crazy in love with Trump and Clinton as he is with any of us. I have to force myself to remember this and to pray for them both. I do fear losing friends if I tell them that I am not voting for either. I am a coward, I guess.
Good article. As a Canadian, I'm very glad I won't have to make this decision. But at this point, if I had to choose, I'd say the least horrible outcome would be that Hillary Clinton becomes president but Republicans keep control of both chambers of congress (barring the extremely unlikely event where Evan McMullin is chosen by the House of Representatives after a deadlocked electoral college). In general, I agree with the conventional wisdom on pro-life voting principles. That is, pro-life voters should choose the candidate that supports protecting unborn children by law and overturning Roe v. Wade (even if they disagree with that candidate's tax plan, healthcare policy, etc). This usually (though not always) means supporting Republican candidates. I find the argument that you should vote for pro-choice candidates because they're supposedly better at reducing abortions than pro-life candidates are (recently advanced by Rachel Held Evans, among others) to be completely unpersuasive, and pro-life writers have done a great job dismantling it. But there are exceptions to the rule. This is one of them. Hillary Clinton is a pathological liar that was careless with classified information. Of course she doesn't belong anywhere near the White House - we shouldn't even need to be having this conversation. If that wasn't enough, Hillary Clinton vowed to only nominate pro-Roe justices to the Supreme Court (guaranteeing another 30+ years of Roe v. Wade if she gets enough of them), spoke at the March for Partial-birth Abortion, supports forcing taxpayers to directly fund abortions, and let some of the most depraved people in the abortion lobby speak at her convention. But that doesn't necessarily mean she's the worse candidate, given the person she's running against. Donald Trump seems to think that national security is about making exploding noises with his mouth. It will be hard to save unborn babies if Hillary Clinton becomes president, but there might not even be any babies left to save if Donald Trump starts a nuclear war because someone made fun of him on Twitter. And while he claims to have become pro-life, he supported partial-birth abortion up until a few years ago. He has not shown any commitment to the pro-life cause, and we have no reason to believe he'll fight for anti-Roe SCOTUS justices (posting a list of people that he probably hasn't even read isn't enough). Pro-life advocates also seriously hurt their credibility with women and minorities (which they've worked very hard to earn) when they endorse a man that regularly makes racist and misogynistic comments, has been successfully sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination, and probably committed at least one sexual assault. It also sends a clear message to the Republican Party that no matter how bad their candidate is, they can take our votes for granted. Why would they bother doing anything for unborn children if it doesn't get them any extra support? I can understand why pro-life leaders have endorsed Donald Trump. Hillary's policies are truly terrifying, and there's a chance that Donald Trump would advance a pro-life agenda. And if he were to actually win, we would much rather have him on our side than to be left without a political party. But just how horrible would the Republican nominee have to be in order to lose the support of the pro-life movement? Would we support David Duke if he ran on a pro-life platform? Would pro-life groups line up behind Leroy Carhart if he promised to appoint anti-Roe justices to the Supreme Court? It seems like a bizarre prospect, but it could happen! Recall that both of these men are registered Republicans (unlike Donald Trump up until very recently). Clearly this would be insane. The long-term damage to the pro-life brand, and the dangers of a Donald Trump presidency, far outweigh the benefits of supporting him. And while I hate to knife my own side, I think several major pro-life organizations helped get us into this mess and should be held accountable. The NRLC for example sat on the sidelines throughout most of the primary season, mainly just gushing about how wonderful it is that all of the Republican candidates are pro-life. When Donald Trump repeatedly praised Planned Parenthood and waffled on defunding it (one time at the height of the CMP video scandal), they either said nothing or offered only the most muted criticism. They were likewise silent when Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were attacked by other supposedly "pro-life" candidates (and well-funded Super PACs) for standing up for babies conceived in rape. They only endorsed Ted Cruz in April, long after it was too late to actually matter. I'm not saying they owed my guy a kiss on the forehead, but a simple statement along the lines of "some candidates are better than others, and one is unacceptable" (like the Susan B. Anthony List released) would have worked. By contrast, Planned Parenthood actually did its job. They broke tradition and endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries. This is partially because they're part of the establishment, but mainly because they know Bernie Sanders is unelectable (despite his perfect voting record and his support for unlimited abortion). Trump may still have won even had NRLC vigorously opposed him, but you can't honestly say they did everything they could to fight an existential threat to the pro-life cause. Even more concerning, like you said, is pro-lifers who have fully sold out for Trump. There is one prominent pro-life blogger that I used to have a lot of respect for. This person now regularly retweets pro-Trump conspiracy theories and xenophobic rants. They even seemed to promote Donald Trump's crusade against Paul Ryan for not hugging him tightly enough. And I think that says it all right there. Someone that would choose Donald Trump over someone that's spent his career defending unborn children is not just "disagreeing on the best political strategy to defend babies". Rather, defending babies isn't their priority to begin with. A Republican Senate probably won't be able to defund Planned Parenthood or ban late-term abortion, but it would minimize the damage Hillary Clinton could do. The Hyde Amendment would be preserved, the Women's Health Protection Act would be dead on arrival, and they might be able to block her pro-Roe SCOTUS nominees. It would also send a clear message that voters are smart enough know the difference between being a Republican and being an idiot, hopefully discrediting Trumpism once and for all. On the bright side, even if Republicans do lose the senate, the candidate they actually should have nominated still seems very well-positioned to defeat Bobby Newport and win the Florida race. His stock value should then skyrocket, making him a frontrunner for the 2020 presidential race. Something stupid could still happen of course (you can never be too sure when Trump is at the top of the ticket), but there is at least some hope. Good read here as well: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441479/donald-trump-voters-never-trump-republicans-conservatives-divide-2016
Obviously, you have thought this through pretty well. I wish more pro-life Trump supporters would read this, and think much more deeply on this current election than they have so far.
I think we are looking at the end of the Pro-Life movement as we know it. We are a coalition of morally, ethically, and socially diverse groups united in common cause to put an end to legal abortion through legislative means. A liberal supreme court will end our common cause and force us to seek secondary means of fulfilling pro life objectives, which our coalition is not in full agreement on. This election has drawn the ethical and moral divisions within our movement into stark relief and that division will not go away after the election. I have been to many rallies for both political parties, and spoken to many individuals on both sides of the abortion debate. The one thing that is abundantly clear is that the old labels of 'Pro-Life' and 'Pro-Choice' or 'Democrat' and 'Republican' are loosing power and new labels are rising up to take their place. There are radical divisions within the Pro Life movement that are not compatible with each other beyond ending legal abortion. The first comment here comes from someone who suggests Pro-Life secession from the Union for example. Perhaps this is a good thing, a good opportunity for the Pro-Life movement to adapt and change and become something that could be supported by a greater portion of the electorate, but this change will not come easy.
Thanks for a good presentation. I can sign on to the statement as you have written it, except that -- When I’m frustrated, I will direct my frustration towards the people who support the killing of babies, not my friends who disagree with me on the best political strategy to defend babies -- it is possible for me to conceive of some pro-lifer on abortion with whom I might get as frustrated on some other life issue as I get with pro-choicers on abortion. (For instance a pro-lifer on abortion who wanted to devastate some country in an unjust war.) Since you use the expression "both sides" and not "all sides," I assume you have in mind never-Hillary pro-lifers who either vote for Trump or do not vote for Trump. But I could basically sign on to the statement even if it refers also to pro-lifers who, in this "awful situation," reluctantly find some reason to vote for Hillary Clinton. (There is one such person that I have done pro-life work with, and I do in fact expect not to become disunited from that person.) l am unable to support Trump for the same reasons you are, and probably for some comparatively leftist reasons in addition. And on the other hand, of course, never Hillary as far as I am concerned. I mailed my absentee ballot about a week ago. I wrote in Serrin Foster for president of the US. Though I am unable to support Trump, I find the temptation to vote for some shred of hope for a pro-life Supreme Court totally understandable and respectable. After the election? Under the most likely scenarios, my solution would be for pro-lifers to be united, yes, and specifically to unite around a movement aimed at eventual secession of the pro-life states from the Union. http://www.noterminationwithoutrepresentation.org/should-the-pro-life-states-secede-from-the-union/
I purposefully worded this piece so as only to be talking about #NeverHillary pro-lifers who are either begrudgingly voting for Trump or who are #NeverTrump. While every case may be unique, there are certainly some people who are either voting for Clinton or people who are purposefully whitewashing Trump's awfulness that I could not make this pledge to.
Thanks for the clarification. That is all as I tended to understand your piece. I still have a little question or quibble, though (I'm not obsessed about it), regarding "there are certainly some people who are . . .voting for Clinton . . . that I could not make this pledge to." The pledge (read without reference to your piece) does not expressly exclude Clinton voters, but it does, even without saying "some that I could not make this pledge to," already exclude Clinton voters who are not pro-life, which is the great majority of them. So when you say "some that I could not make this pledge to," I guess you mean that even regarding those few pro-lifers who will vote for Clinton, there are some you could not make the pledge to. But if there are some that you could make the pledge to, then I guess your "I purposefully worded this piece . . ." means that although you could make the pledge to them, you just didn't want to take that small group into consideration for present purposes. For myself, I could make the pledge to a [pro-life] Clinton voter whose thinking was like this, for instance: "Trump would get the whole world into a nuclear conflagration, which would be worse than abortion, and the only way to stop Trump is not to vote third-party, but to vote for Clinton."
Yeah, I think you're tracking with me. I haven't thought a lot about the Clinton voter who would say they're pro-life and are so concerned about nuclear conflagration that they would still support a person who defended late-term abortions on national television. Would probably depend on the person. It's a very fair question.
Question: Why, exactly, are late-term abortions worse than early abortions? A fetus which suffers an early abortion lives only a short time--a few weeks. A fetus which suffers a late-term abortion lives a longer time--more than 20 weeks. Isn't a longer life better for the fetus than a shorter life would be? Doesn't everyone want to live longer? If you were a fetus, and you knew you were gonna be aborted, wouldn't you pray for the abortion to be done as late in pregnancy as possible, so you'd get to live longer?
Late-term abortions are worse than early-term abortions because later-term fetuses can feel pain. Some of them are also viable outside the womb. Late-term abortions are also more medically complicated and cause more health risks for the mother.
Also, there are two ways to evaluate the "better" or "worse" of an action. One way is the degree of wrong that is done to the victim. The other way is what the action seems to tell us about the morality of the actor. In the case of someone involved in an early-term abortion, there is something called "plausible deniability." Those who have not thought deeply may plausibly not understand the seriousness of what they are doing. Whereas in the case of a partial-birth abortion, particularly, the reality of what they are doing stares everyone in the face.
Many Christians, perhaps particularly those of us active in prolife ministry, are asking ourselves, how best may I use my freedom and privilege to vote in the coming election for President? Believing as I do in God’s direction and will, I have spent some very early mornings recently praying, not for a candidate, but direction. Not surprisingly, God did not weigh in for either candidate. I did not expect Him to do so. I do believe I received assurances that all of the promises of His Word are sure and that my seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness (Mt. 6:33) will always work well even under the most ungodly man or woman elected to lead our nation. During the Republican Primaries most of my friends, family and associates, including active prolife people, found agreement that Mr. Trump was unacceptable. He had shown himself to be rude, crude, and sometimes mean. He carried baggage of multiple divorces and in the past had supported a woman’s “choice” for abortion but reversed himself after seeking the nomination. In short, most of us were not reluctant to join in a chorus of “Never Trump.” At the same time the “Never Hillary” tune played just as loudly by the good folks. So what are we realistically left with is a conundrum. Do I vote for a man who I have publicly and repeatedly denounced as unacceptable? If I do not vote for this man, am I helping to elect Hillary, a woman that will undoubtedly use her power to promote and legalize policies of all manner of evil and corruption? I believe the answer to the latter is yes. If I do not vote or if I vote for a no chance candidate am I increasing Hillary’s chances of winning the election and possibly giving the Senate over to Democrat control? I think so. My thoughts here are my own. I do not know if all of the SOHLNET board members agree with my conclusions. I do know that they all are in agreement that a President Hillary Clinton will: (1) continue to promote child killing without exceptions and will move to make all abortions tax payer funded. (2) She will bring the full force of a corrupt Justice Department to silence, penalize and imprison all who are acting and speaking up for the voiceless. Remember that her husband used RICO (Racketeering) statutes against us during his tenure. (3) She will with fervor support and promote the agenda of the LGBT crowd to further their goals which will use the same corrupt methods to silence not only all of us, but the church. (4) She will fill two or three vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court who will rule with disguised intellectual verbiage to tell us why the Constitution supports the laws and actions of Hillary. (5) President Hillary will continue the Obama policy of stripping our armed forces to a state of un-readiness and ISIS terrorism will continue as “leading from behind” remains U.S. policy. Our weakness may well bring us to war with those who only respect our military strength and our wisdom to use it, as Reagan did. (6) Joblessness, which is most devastating to the poor, will continue under Hillary’s socialist policies. (7) A policy of dividing Americans by race and “income inequality” will likely increase hatred, riots and police murders. I have no fears in what Hillary and her administration might do to me. My wife and I have both experienced arrests for standing up for the voiceless and confronting evil. Our faith is in God who controls our destiny. I do have great concerns for my 19 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren whose lives will suffer as our nation continues to “Slouch into Gomorrah.” Please prayerfully consider what you will do on Election Day. Respect and grace to those in prolife who disagree with one’s choice for the highest office in the land? Absolutely. On the other hand, unity for unity’s sake in prolife strategy and tactics is not a good idea. Bud Reeves – Sanctity of Human Life Network, Inc.
Can you clarify something for me, Bud? I see you've copied and pasted your newsletter from October 13th, but you haven't interacted with my article. I can't tell from your ending whether you even agree or disagree with my piece. Care to elaborate?
Believe it or not, there are a lot of sincere Trump supporters who really do care about the future of the country for our children and grandchildren. I will continue to pray.
I did say that a lot of people have literally lied while defending him, and that we shouldn't trust those people. That we shouldn't trust liars. If your accusation is that I sound "suspicious" of those people, then we are on the same page. Of course we should be suspicious of liars.
The pro-life movement has suffered a serious disappointment: when real-time in utero imaging techniques became mainstream, pro-lifers happily predicted that Americans would finally see that fetuses are live human persons, and convert en masse to pro-life. This has not happened. What has happened instead is, a new category or position or faction on abortion has sprung up: those who are BOTH pro-choice AND pro-life. Polls which allow respondents to choose both labels for themselves consistently find that a large plurality choose "both". One poll found 43% did. These "both" folks agree that fetuses are live human persons, but support abortion rights anyway. To them, abortion is homicide, but when it is done at the request of the womb-owner, it is righteous, justifiable homicide. So even (most of) the pro-lifers are pro-choice.
How should pro-lifers respond to this?
The pro-life movement needs to abandon the effort to prevent abortions by using force, law, or threat to punish women for having abortions or to punish doctors for doing abortions. The pro-life movement needs to purge itself of its coercive wing, and restrict itself entirely to trying to prevent abortions exclusively by means which do not violate the womb-owner's rights: by persuasion and reward. Until it does this, the pro-life movement will remain a permanent minority, and will continue to create more opposition to itself than support for itself. Americans will never tolerate the possibility that an ordinary woman, someone they might know, could be compelled by her government to grow an unwelcome pregnancy and to endure full-term labor and delivery against her will, giving birth to a baby she does not want. But many women feel sorry for the babies and may be open to persuasion.
Persuasive efforts should be honest and respectful. Attempting to scare women away from the abortions they want by spreading medical lies, such as the lies that abortions cause breast-cancer, fertility problems, or severe mental-health problems, do more harm than good to the pro-life movement. They cause potentially persuadable people to write you off and tune you out. Americans are not stupid and the truth about these medical lies is easy to find The tone should be: "we recognize your right to kill your fetus so long as it is located inside your body, and doing so will most likely not harm you in any way, but you should grow your pregnancy, because your fetus is a person which has never intentionally done anything wrong." Or something like that.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/04/theodore-shulman-arrested-indictment-death-threats
Anyway, in his blog comments he repeatedly indicated that a fetus is a person with the right to life but that abortion is a form of justifiable homicide. Very strange character. From what I've heard, he was creepy as hell but thoughtful and very intelligent.
Is that argument valid? Well, there has been at least one case since then which would support it: the case of Angel Dillard, who sent a scary letter to an abortion-doc named Myla Means. A few years after Dr. Tiller was murdered, Dr. Means proposed to start doing abortions in his old building, and Dillard sent her a letter warning that if she did, she would be targeted. The letter was quite explicit, it said, among other things, that Dr. Means would have to check under her car for bombs every morning. But, Dillard eventually got off scott-free, without even paying a fine, because she had not threatened to harm anyone herself.
On the other hand, the counter-argument is: the legal definition of a threat depends on how a hypothetical "reasonable person" would feel upon reading the communication, not on the actual grammatical content of the communication itself. By that standard, some of Shulman's communications almost certainly would have qualified as threats.
Shulman eventually pleaded guilty in order to avoid the "trial-penalty", which is: if you go to trial, the prosecution often files numerous additional charges, which can include charges unrelated to the original crime--an accused drug-dealer who goes to trial may find himself also charged with domestic violence or something; also, judges typically sentence you much more harshly for being found guilty of a crime than for pleading guilty to the same crime. Between the extra charges and the extra time-per-charge you get for going to trial, you can find yourself serving literally TEN TIMES longer if you go to trial than if you plead down. Also, the statistics are very much against you: more than 95% of Federal trials end in a conviction. So it is VERY UNWISE to go to trial if you get charged with a Federal crime.
I agree that Shulman appears to be kind of a creepy guy. Following the case, I had the impression that it amuses him to appear so. I think he would have liked to have been a monster-actor like Anthony Hopkins or Vincent Price or Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee or Gustav Neidlinger.
Secondly, the "avoid remaining a permanent minority" part just relates to a means to an end. The goal is preventing abortions (and for many pro-lifers also preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place).
Via the avenue you suggest (restricting the movement to moral suasion), we could probably form a majority even regarding early-term abortions, but at a cost -- the cost of restricting ourselves to a toothless method (moral suasion). We would have a broader base, but would restrict ourselves to a toothless method. And because the method would be obviously toothless, the base would probably be less energized.
Is it obvious to you that your approach would be more successful in preventing abortions? It's not to me. What is your case for thinking that it would be?
For one thing, it seems to me that if we do not demand legal protections for unborn persons similar to those we would demand for born persons, we will appear to believe that the unborn are not really persons, which will undermine even our efforts at moral suasion. Laws affect culture, just as culture affects laws. Rebecca Haschke does pro-life outreach on college campuses. In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuONbERruPc, she said:
I’ve talked to students on campus, though, when we talk about abortion – their reasoning for why abortion is okay is because the law says it’s okay. And I ask them, “Should the law be what determines what is right and wrong?,” and they'll be like “Well, yeah, it does.” And then I cringe and I say, “Well, have we ever had laws that have been unjust?” And then they go, “Yeah, we have.” . . . the law does sometimes make people think . . . it influences people’s thoughts.
In 2005 the Los Angeles Times http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/58965:offering-abortion-rebirth. She regrets having to pay $750 for the abortion, but Amanda says she does not doubt her decision. "It's not like it's illegal. It's not like I'm doing anything wrong," she says.
At a pro-life conference in Orange, Calif. in September 2014, the president of the National Right-to-Life Committee remarked, We often hear, "If it hadn't been legal, I wouldn't have done it."
[Edit: In a 1996 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj1y6NGwqYk with Naomi Wolf, Helen Alvare said (at 18:13): The basis for the [pro-life] moral position is that it is the taking of a human life. In other arenas in society where the taking of a human life is concerned, the law also enters. If it DOESN'T enter, that is the anomaly, that's the strange thing! So the very basis for the moral position leads. . . . The moral and legal have to go in tandem.]
RE: "it seems to me that if we do not demand legal protections for unborn
persons similar to those we would demand for born persons, we will
appear to believe that the unborn are not really persons," Exactly! Unborn persons should have the same protections, and the same rights, which already born persons have. If an already-born person is allowed to do something, then an unborn person should be allowed to do the same thing. Conversely, if an already-born person is NOT allowed to do something, then unborn people should NOT be allowed to do that thing either. Do we agree on this? Equal rights and protections for unborn persons, but no SPECIAL rights or protections for anyone. Are you with me so far?
Now tell me: are already-born persons allowed to be located, or to have any part of themselves located, inside another person's body when unwelcome there? Answer "yes" or "no" here: ____.
Therefore, should an unborn person be allowed to be located inside another person's body when unwelcome there? Copy your answer from the previous blank here: _____.
And tell me: are already-born persons allowed to share the contents of another person's bloodstream without ongoing permission from that other person to do so? Answer "yes" or "no" here: __.
Therefore, should an unborn person be allowed to share the contents of its mother's bloodstream without ongoing permission from her to do so? Copy your answer from the previous blank here: __.
And tell me: are already-born persons allowed to subject another person to an avoidable major medical/surgical trauma against that other person's will? Answer "yes" or "no" here: ___.
Therefore, should an unborn person be allowed to cause its mother to suffer a preventable full-term labor and delivery against her will? Copy your answer from the previous blank here: ____.
"Equal rights and protections" for unborn persons won't get you what you want. In order to justify a ban against abortion, you need to justify SPECIAL rights and SPECIAL protections for unborn persons. It's not clear how you will be able to do that. But a first step would be to stop pretending that you are only asking for equal rights and protections, and be honest about what you are really demanding.
(For the dissimlarities in penalties, please see my http://www.noterminationwithoutrepresentation.org/pro-lifers-dont-really-believe-that-zygotes-are-persons/.)
So what I said was about penalties. I never said that the somewhat similar penalties, in two different situations, would be underlain by exactly the same philosophical justification.
Secondly, though you wrote -- Equal rights and protections
-- in your second paragraph, and even wrote -- "Equal rights and protections"
-- with quote marks in your last para, I intentionally never said "equal," I said "similar."
In light of all of the above taken together, all of your questions, as you have literally framed them, are irrelevant, I believe. In spirit if not literally, however, you have some reasonable questions about my consistency of thought, and I think you will find satisfactory answers in my http://www.noterminationwithoutrepresentation.org/bodily-rights-and-a-better-idea/.
That article ends with a section Special-Rights Pleading. You once read that section and had some objection. Thereafter, as I told you at the time, I made a clarification in that section which I think successfully addresses your objection. You are right that many Americans support restrictions on late-term abortions--until someone they know needs one.
Literally you are saying that that last proviso is true for ALL Americans who support restrictions on late-term abortions. I am an American who supports restrictions on late-term abortions (and early-term abortions). I have never been aware that anyone I personally knew was seeking a late-term abortion, but I have counseled people whom I knew against early-term abortions, so certainly I would do no less regarding a late-term abortion.
Now, I said that no one I personally knew was seeking a late-term abortion. You used the word needs. I certainly wouldn't argue with anyone who needs an abortion, and neither would 99% of the Americans who support restrictions.
If you believe that a proviso "until someone they know seeks a late-term abortion," which as I've shown certainly doesn't hold for ALL Americans who support restrictions on late-term abortions, would even significantly change the statistics that you acknowledge, what is your evidence for that belief of yours?
RE: "and I think you will find satisfactory answers in my "Bodily Rights and a Better Idea"." Have you cleaned up the writing and made it readable yet? I gave you instructions and a useful example on how to do so.
OK, I looked at the "Special pleading" section. You seem to have added: ...rather than “special-rights pleading,” it would be more accurate to say that the truest defense of a pro-life position rests simply on the intuition that the developing child in the womb deserves a certain degree of protection, and that any hypothetical innocent person in the womb, causing no more harm than a developing child in a normal pregnancy, would deserve the same degree of protection.
That's dishonest and misleading. What's misleading is the word "protection". Preventing abortion does more than just protect the fetus. Preventing abortion also enables a fetus to remain located inside another person's body when unwelcome there, and to share the contents of another person's bloodstream without ongoing permission, and to inflict a major medical/surgical trauma upon her against her will. An innocent already-born who happens to have somehow made his way into the other person's womb without losing his innocence may be entitled to the same protection he was entitled to when he was outside, but that doesn't entitle him to the special body-access/body-traumatizing privileges which right-to-lifers are trying to secure for fetuses, any more than he was entitled to them when he was outside. So you're still special-pleading for special rights for fetuses, but you're pretending you're not, by misleadingly describing those special rights as "protection" and by falsely equating them with the right to protection which non-fetuses enjoy.
So still no cigar, AND, a penalty for dishonestly mischaracterizing your moral intuition.
Okay, it was nice talking to you, up till that point. Best wishes.
But there are exceptions to the rule. This is one of them. Hillary Clinton is a pathological liar that was careless with classified information. Of course she doesn't belong anywhere near the White House - we shouldn't even need to be having this conversation. If that wasn't enough, Hillary Clinton vowed to only nominate pro-Roe justices to the Supreme Court (guaranteeing another 30+ years of Roe v. Wade if she gets enough of them), spoke at the March for Partial-birth Abortion, supports forcing taxpayers to directly fund abortions, and let some of the most depraved people in the abortion lobby speak at her convention. But that doesn't necessarily mean she's the worse candidate, given the person she's running against. Donald Trump seems to think that national security is about making exploding noises with his mouth. It will be hard to save unborn babies if Hillary Clinton becomes president, but there might not even be any babies left to save if Donald Trump starts a nuclear war because someone made fun of him on Twitter. And while he claims to have become pro-life, he supported partial-birth abortion up until a few years ago. He has not shown any commitment to the pro-life cause, and we have no reason to believe he'll fight for anti-Roe SCOTUS justices (posting a list of people that he probably hasn't even read isn't enough). Pro-life advocates also seriously hurt their credibility with women and minorities (which they've worked very hard to earn) when they endorse a man that regularly makes racist and misogynistic comments, has been successfully sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination, and probably committed at least one sexual assault. It also sends a clear message to the Republican Party that no matter how bad their candidate is, they can take our votes for granted. Why would they bother doing anything for unborn children if it doesn't get them any extra support? I can understand why pro-life leaders have endorsed Donald Trump. Hillary's policies are truly terrifying, and there's a chance that Donald Trump would advance a pro-life agenda. And if he were to actually win, we would much rather have him on our side than to be left without a political party. But just how horrible would the Republican nominee have to be in order to lose the support of the pro-life movement? Would we support David Duke if he ran on a pro-life platform? Would pro-life groups line up behind Leroy Carhart if he promised to appoint anti-Roe justices to the Supreme Court? It seems like a bizarre prospect, but it could happen! Recall that both of these men are registered Republicans (unlike Donald Trump up until very recently). Clearly this would be insane. The long-term damage to the pro-life brand, and the dangers of a Donald Trump presidency, far outweigh the benefits of supporting him.
And while I hate to knife my own side, I think several major pro-life organizations helped get us into this mess and should be held accountable. The NRLC for example sat on the sidelines throughout most of the primary season, mainly just gushing about how wonderful it is that all of the Republican candidates are pro-life. When Donald Trump repeatedly praised Planned Parenthood and waffled on defunding it (one time at the height of the CMP video scandal), they either said nothing or offered only the most muted criticism. They were likewise silent when Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were attacked by other supposedly "pro-life" candidates (and well-funded Super PACs) for standing up for babies conceived in rape. They only endorsed Ted Cruz in April, long after it was too late to actually matter. I'm not saying they owed my guy a kiss on the forehead, but a simple statement along the lines of "some candidates are better than others, and one is unacceptable" (like the Susan B. Anthony List released) would have worked. By contrast, Planned Parenthood actually did its job. They broke tradition and endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries. This is partially because they're part of the establishment, but mainly because they know Bernie Sanders is unelectable (despite his perfect voting record and his support for unlimited abortion). Trump may still have won even had NRLC vigorously opposed him, but you can't honestly say they did everything they could to fight an existential threat to the pro-life cause. Even more concerning, like you said, is pro-lifers who have fully sold out for Trump. There is one prominent pro-life blogger that I used to have a lot of respect for. This person now regularly retweets pro-Trump conspiracy theories and xenophobic rants. They even seemed to promote Donald Trump's crusade against Paul Ryan for not hugging him tightly enough. And I think that says it all right there. Someone that would choose Donald Trump over someone that's spent his career defending unborn children is not just "disagreeing on the best political strategy to defend babies". Rather, defending babies isn't their priority to begin with.
A Republican Senate probably won't be able to defund Planned Parenthood or ban late-term abortion, but it would minimize the damage Hillary Clinton could do. The Hyde Amendment would be preserved, the Women's Health Protection Act would be dead on arrival, and they might be able to block her pro-Roe SCOTUS nominees. It would also send a clear message that voters are smart enough know the difference between being a Republican and being an idiot, hopefully discrediting Trumpism once and for all. On the bright side, even if Republicans do lose the senate, the candidate they actually should have nominated still seems very well-positioned to defeat Bobby Newport and win the Florida race. His stock value should then skyrocket, making him a frontrunner for the 2020 presidential race. Something stupid could still happen of course (you can never be too sure when Trump is at the top of the ticket), but there is at least some hope.
Good read here as well:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441479/donald-trump-voters-never-trump-republicans-conservatives-divide-2016
I wish more pro-life Trump supporters would read this, and think much more deeply on this current election than they have so far.
I have been to many rallies for both political parties, and spoken to many individuals on both sides of the abortion debate. The one thing that is abundantly clear is that the old labels of 'Pro-Life' and 'Pro-Choice' or 'Democrat' and 'Republican' are loosing power and new labels are rising up to take their place. There are radical divisions within the Pro Life movement that are not compatible with each other beyond ending legal abortion. The first comment here comes from someone who suggests Pro-Life secession from the Union for example.
Perhaps this is a good thing, a good opportunity for the Pro-Life movement to adapt and change and become something that could be supported by a greater portion of the electorate, but this change will not come easy.
When I’m frustrated, I will direct my frustration towards the people who support the killing of babies, not my friends who disagree with me on the best political strategy to defend babies
-- it is possible for me to conceive of some pro-lifer on abortion with whom I might get as frustrated on some other life issue as I get with pro-choicers on abortion. (For instance a pro-lifer on abortion who wanted to devastate some country in an unjust war.)
Since you use the expression "both sides" and not "all sides," I assume you have in mind never-Hillary pro-lifers who either vote for Trump or do not vote for Trump. But I could basically sign on to the statement even if it refers also to pro-lifers who, in this "awful situation," reluctantly find some reason to vote for Hillary Clinton. (There is one such person that I have done pro-life work with, and I do in fact expect not to become disunited from that person.)
l am unable to support Trump for the same reasons you are, and probably for some comparatively leftist reasons in addition.
And on the other hand, of course, never Hillary as far as I am concerned.
I mailed my absentee ballot about a week ago. I wrote in Serrin Foster for president of the US.
Though I am unable to support Trump, I find the temptation to vote for some shred of hope for a pro-life Supreme Court totally understandable and respectable.
After the election? Under the most likely scenarios, my solution would be for pro-lifers to be united, yes, and specifically to unite around a movement aimed at eventual secession of the pro-life states from the Union.
http://www.noterminationwithoutrepresentation.org/should-the-pro-life-states-secede-from-the-union/
I still have a little question or quibble, though (I'm not obsessed about it), regarding "there are certainly some people who are . . .voting for Clinton . . . that I could
not make this pledge to."
The pledge (read without reference to your piece) does not expressly exclude Clinton voters, but it does, even without saying "some that I could not make this pledge to," already exclude Clinton voters who are not pro-life, which is the great majority of them.
So when you say "some that I could not make this pledge to," I guess you mean that even regarding those few pro-lifers who will vote for Clinton, there are some you could not make the pledge to. But if there are some that you could make the pledge to, then I guess your "I purposefully worded this piece . . ." means that although you could make the pledge to them, you just didn't want to take that small group into consideration for present purposes.
For myself, I could make the pledge to a [pro-life] Clinton voter whose thinking was like this, for instance: "Trump would get the whole world into a nuclear conflagration, which would be worse than abortion, and the only way to stop Trump is not to vote third-party, but to vote for Clinton."
Why, exactly, are late-term abortions worse than early abortions?
A fetus which suffers an early abortion lives only a short time--a few weeks.
A fetus which suffers a late-term abortion lives a longer time--more than 20 weeks.
Isn't a longer life better for the fetus than a shorter life would be?
Doesn't everyone want to live longer?
If you were a fetus, and you knew you were gonna be aborted, wouldn't you pray for the abortion to be done as late in pregnancy as possible, so you'd get to live longer?
those of us active in prolife ministry, are asking ourselves, how best may I
use my freedom and privilege to vote in the coming election for President?
Believing as I do in God’s direction and will, I have spent some very early
mornings recently praying, not for a candidate, but direction. Not
surprisingly, God did not weigh in for either candidate. I did not expect Him
to do so. I do believe I received assurances that all of the promises of His
Word are sure and that my seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness (Mt.
6:33) will always work well even under the most ungodly man or woman elected to
lead our nation.
During the Republican Primaries most of my friends,
family and associates, including active prolife people, found agreement that
Mr. Trump was unacceptable. He had shown himself to be rude, crude, and
sometimes mean. He carried baggage of multiple divorces and in the past had
supported a woman’s “choice” for abortion but reversed himself after seeking
the nomination. In short, most of us were not reluctant to join in a chorus of
“Never Trump.” At the same time the “Never Hillary” tune played just as loudly
by the good folks. So what are we realistically left with is a conundrum.
Do I vote for a man who I have publicly and
repeatedly denounced as unacceptable? If I do not vote for this man, am I
helping to elect Hillary, a woman that will undoubtedly use her power to
promote and legalize policies of all manner of evil and corruption? I believe
the answer to the latter is yes. If I do not vote or if I vote for a no chance
candidate am I increasing Hillary’s chances of winning the election and
possibly giving the Senate over to Democrat control? I think so.
My thoughts here are my own. I do not know if all of the SOHLNET board members agree
with my conclusions. I do know that they all are in agreement that a President
Hillary Clinton will: (1) continue to promote child killing without exceptions
and will move to make all abortions tax payer funded. (2) She will bring the
full force of a corrupt Justice Department to silence, penalize and imprison
all who are acting and speaking up for the voiceless. Remember that her husband
used RICO (Racketeering) statutes against us during his tenure. (3) She will
with fervor support and promote the agenda of the LGBT crowd to further their
goals which will use the same corrupt methods to silence not only all of us,
but the church. (4) She will fill two or
three vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court who will rule with disguised
intellectual verbiage to tell us why the Constitution supports the laws and
actions of Hillary. (5) President Hillary will continue the Obama policy of
stripping our armed forces to a state of un-readiness and ISIS terrorism will
continue as “leading from behind” remains U.S. policy. Our weakness may well bring us to war with
those who only respect our military strength and our wisdom to use it, as
Reagan did. (6) Joblessness, which is most devastating to the poor, will
continue under Hillary’s socialist policies. (7) A policy of dividing Americans
by race and “income inequality” will likely increase hatred, riots and police
murders.
I have no fears in what Hillary and her
administration might do to me. My wife and I have both experienced arrests for
standing up for the voiceless and confronting evil. Our faith is in God who
controls our destiny. I do have great concerns for my 19 grandchildren and
eight great grandchildren whose lives will suffer as our nation continues to
“Slouch into Gomorrah.” Please prayerfully consider what you will do on
Election Day.
Respect and grace to those in prolife who disagree
with one’s choice for the highest office in the land? Absolutely.
On the other hand, unity for unity’s sake in prolife strategy and
tactics is not a good idea.
Bud Reeves – Sanctity of Human
Life Network, Inc.