Reflecting on yet another loss at the state level for anti-abortion activists, New York Times columnist and evangelical Christian David French wrote on Sunday that their biggest obstacle they have to overcome is Donald Trump and his impact on the Republican party.
According to French, under Trump, the GOP has lost its moral authority which has turned off some voters who are on the fence when it comes to the sanctity of life versus a woman's right to make private medical decisions.
Noting the massive setback for anti-abortion forces in Ohio this past week, French conceded, "There’s no way to spin this result. There’s no way to spin every other pro-choice result in every other red-state referendum. The pro-life movement is in a state of electoral collapse, and I think I know one reason."
That would be Trump who ushered in a generation of aggressively rightwing politicians who sow chaos when it comes to government mandates.
"Trump’s movement dismisses the value of personal character. It mocks personal restraint. And it’s happy to inflict its will on others if it achieves what it wants," he wrote before adding, "I don’t think the pro-life movement has fully reckoned with the political and cultural fallout from the libertine right-wing response to the Covid pandemic. Here was a movement that was loudly telling women that they had to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, with all the physical transformations, risks and financial uncertainties that come with pregnancy and childbirth, at the same time that millions of its members were also loudly refusing the minor inconveniences of masking and the low risks of vaccination."
As he notes, the sea-change within the GOP since Trump became its de facto leader has made it inhospitable to the anti-abortion crowd.
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"As the Republican Party grows more libertine, the pro-life movement is going to keep losing. Of course, it’s going to keep losing with Democrats and independents, many of whom have always been skeptical of pro-life moral and legal arguments," he wrote before predicting, "But it’s also going to lose in the Republican Party itself, a party that is increasingly dedicated to outright defiance."
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