53percenter's Blog

The Democratic Party has moved from the Clintonian abortion formulation of “safe, legal, and rare” to the unapologetic Lena Dunham-esque braggadocio of “shout your abortion” quicker than an Usain Bolt 100-meter dash. And while the silver lining of what National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru aptly dubs “the infanticide craze” currently sweeping its way across sundry Democratic-controlled state legislatures and gubernatorial mansions is that abortion backers seem genuinely worried about a possible blow the current U.S. Supreme Court may soon strike at Roe and it grisly progeny, the barbaric fact remains that these blue states are now in something akin to a race to the bottom to see who can most closely approximate the abortion regime of such “progressive” bastions as China or North Korea.

One supposes that these open supporters of infanticide are at least intellectually honest about their convictions. Alas, that does not make those convictions — however honestly and consistently held — any less barbaric. As Vice President Mike Pence nicely put it, “This shameless embrace of a culture of death is startling to every American who cherishes life.”

Yet perhaps there is an additional silver lining for pro-lifers. The spectacle of Democratic governors from New York, Virginia, and Rhode Island falling all over themselves to legalize de facto on-demand abortion up until birth provides pro-lifers with a unique opportunity to proselytize to the overwhelming majority of Americans who are not full-on crazy prenatal baby killers.

Pro-lifers should do their best to seize this moment — to both preach our substantive message and to tactically appeal to those who hold centrist views on the abortion issue. In doing so, here are four key areas we ought to emphasize.

1. The Democratic Party’s Shift On Abortion Has Been Enormous. As aformentioned, the Democratic Party’s shift on the issue of unborn life has been nothing short of remarkable. For decades, the Democratic Party was the comfortable political home for many pro-life Catholics. Even after the 1973 constitutional atrocity of Roe, the Democratic Party continued to serve as a political home for many pro-life Christians (and especially Catholics) who valued the unborn but leaned to the Left on issues such as immigration or the welfare state. As late as the 1990s, Democrat Bob Casey Sr. was a staunchly pro-life governor of a major state. Whereas Gov. Mario Cuomo was instrumental in concoting the “personally pro-life but won’t force that belief unto others” faux-intellectual farce, his son Gov. Andrew Cuomo makes no such pretensions — such is the inter-generational shift in the Party’s militant thinking vis-à-vis the unborn.

The halcyon days of Democratic acceptance of pro-lifers is unfortunately over. As Cardinal Timothy Dolan lamented in The Wall Street Journal last March, foreshadowing the grisly abortion bill that Gov. Andrew Cuomo would sign into law less than a year later:

An esteemed pro-life Democrat in Illinois, Rep. Dan Lipinski, effectively [has been] blacklisted by his own party. Last year, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez insisted that pro-life candidates have no place in the modern Democratic Party. …

More sobering, what is already the most radical abortion license in the country may soon be even more morbidly expanded. For instance, under the proposed Reproductive Health Act, doctors would not be required to care for a baby who survives an abortion. The newborn simply would be allowed to die without any legal implications. And abortions would be legal up to the moment of birth. …

[I]t saddens me, and weakens the democracy millions of Americans cherish, when the party that once embraced Catholics now slams the door on us.

2. Science Is On Our Side. This point speaks for itself, but it is too crucial to dismiss as a merely incidental strand of pro-life argumentation. As I recently wrote:

In truth, the pro-life argument is deceptively simple. There are only two core components.

The first component is science. It is a rudimentary embryological/biological factthat, upon sperm fertilization of an egg, a new DNA code is formed. Removing morality or bioethics from the equation, there is no more obvious place in the gestational continuum to demarcate the scientific origin of a new, discrete human life. …

At a sperm’s fertilization of an egg, the biological process commences through which a new member of the human species is formed. That biological process, if left unimpeded by external actors, will result in the eventual live birth of an organism that every lay person would intuitively recognize as a full-fledged new human being.

Science now informs us when unborn children first develop various body parts, when brain activity commences, when they feel pain, and so forth. This really should be compelling — electrical brain activity usually begins as early as the fifth or sixth week of pregnancy. It is extraordinarily difficult to interpret, on a non-scientific and purely visceral, intuitive level, a biological organism emitting electrical brain waves as merely being an amorphous “clump of cells.” Similarly, ultrasound imagery is also hugely beneficial to the pro-life community, and we ought to invoke and use it frequently.

3. Defunding Planned Parenthood Does Not Mean All Women’s Health Clinics Should Be Defunded. As a general observation of what I have experienced in various modes and settings of pro-life advocacy, there is only so far that constantly calling one’s pro-abortion foe a baby killer will go. To the extent pro-lifers want to engage in the dialectic and persuade hearts and minds — as opposed to merely throwing bombs — it is deeply important to sometimes soften our tone and emphasize lighter, more delicate points. Pro-lifers (properly) speak routinely about defunding Planned Parenthood — an organization founded by an unapologetic eugenicist (Margaret Sanger) and which today performs more abortions than any institution in America. And yet besides the death cult with which it is most famously intertwined, it is also undeniable that Planned Parenthood also performs some (non-death-inducing) women’s health services that pro-lifers and conservatives ought to support: STD testing, vaccine services, and cancer screenings all come to mind.

Pro-lifers ought to discuss more frequently the notion that any defunding of Planned Parenthood could easily be replaced by a funding of women’s health clinics that do not perform abortions. Consider this 2015 study by the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Charlotte Lozier Institute, which identified across the country a startling ratio of 20 comprehensive women’s healthcare clinics for every one Planned Parenthood clinic in the country: 13,540 to 665, in total. The Daily Signal wrote at the time:

Alliance Defending Freedom and Charlotte Lozier Institute, the education arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, identified the different Planned Parenthood locations and community health care clinics across America.

The two groups argue there are plenty of health centers — that also can receive federal funding — to absorb Planned Parenthood’s patients should the organization be defunded by Congress.

“What these graphics put into pictures is what the data has been telling us for a long time,” Casey Mattox, a senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom who focuses on pro-life issues, told The Daily Signal. “Planned Parenthood is really a small part of the national health care picture in America.”

To be pro-life is not in any way to be anti-woman — but it is incumbent upon pro-lifers to forcefully drive that point home.

4. Substantive Investment In And Rhetorical Emphasis Of Crisis Pregnancy Centers Can Go A Long Way. Along the same lines of the need for pro-lifers to sometimes take a softer tone and exude compassion for women who find themselves in unplanned pregnancies, I have long been of the belief that pro-lifers need to place more intellectual, social, and, indeed, financial capital toward supporting and maintaining distinctly pro-life crisis pregnancy centers. Put simply, it ought to be much easier for centrists and moderates on the abortion issue to come around to our side when they know that pro-lifers have a firm interest in helping the very best they can the invariably depressed, scared, lonely single women who suffer through unwanted pregnancies. Without a firm commitment to pro-life crisis pregnancy centers (i.e., those centers that do not offer abortions), the pro-life argument risks ringing hollow for many. It is easy to preach the natural rights theory and rudimentary embryology that both support the right to life for unborn children. It is far more difficult, though just as important, to preach the need for pro-lifers to fully and unequivocally endorse and support our caring for single women who endure unplanned pregnancies. Churches, synagogues, and the various other mediating institutions of civil society need to do a better job than they already are of funding and supporting pro-life crisis pregnancy centers across the country. Pro-lifers are not just pro-unborn baby, but also pro-woman — but we need our actions to consistently match our beliefs in demonstrating that.

President Donald Trump reasserted his promise on Friday to withdraw the United States from conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria.

“I inherited a total mess in Syria and Afghanistan, the ‘Endless Wars’ of unlimited spending and death,” Trump wrote on Twitter, recalling his campaign promise.

The president reminded Americans that they were spending $50 billion a year in Afghanistan, but he noted that peace talks were on the table.

The House Democrats’ proposed 2019 homeland security budget reopens the nation’s southern border to migrant inflows, while it also dangles the promise of cheap labor in front of GOP legislators and donors.

The draft budget adds $1.75 billion in extra border spending to President Donald Trump’s $58.7 billion budget request for the Department of Homeland security in 2019, according to a copy published by the Washington Post.

But Democrats’ draft bill does not include any funding for the wall, and it uses the extra money to help migrants bypass border protections and then win jobs in the U.S. labor market.

The American pro-life position will get primetime treatment during President Trump’s State of the Union address next Tuesday in response to the radical abortion laws being pushed in Democrat-controlled states like New York and Virginia.

According to Politico, sources close to the White House have confirmed that President Trump has told conservative allies he wants to push the abortion issue during his speech next week.

“President Donald Trump is telling conservative allies he wants to incorporate firm anti-abortion language into his State of the Union address Tuesday, and potentially include an anti-abortion figure among his list of invitees, according to four sources familiar with his plans,” reports the outlet.

While certainly the morally correct move, President Trump’s decision to push the abortion issue so forcefully is also politically momentous, considering that it will galvanize his evangelical base and possibly persuade moderate voters.

“Trump sees an opening to energize his evangelical supporters and capture moderate voters who administration officials believe may be turned off by widespread coverage of New York’s newest abortion law, which allows for termination of some pregnancies after the 24-week mark for health reasons,” notes Politico.

Conservatives were largely unified this week in response to comments issued by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam that endorsed infanticide when he said that a baby born alive could be left to die on the table if the mother did not want it. He said:

When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of the mother, with the consent of physicians, more than one physician by the way, and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus which is non-viable. So in this particular example, if the mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen, the infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if this is what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physician and the mother.

Governor Northam’s comments came shortly after Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York signed into law last week one of the most radical abortion measures in United States history, ensuring that women have a “fundamental right” to kill their babies at any time throughout the pregnancy if an authorized abortionist determines in “good faith” that it would “protect the patient’s life or health.” Under the new law, a woman in New York can literally abort her baby at any time up to the moment of its birth.

Sources close to the White House confirmed to Politico that President Trump has been speaking with Christian leaders on ways to craft his pro-life message.

“The president wants to reaffirm his commitment to pro-life things,” said the source.

Earlier this week, during an interview with The Daily Caller, President Trump denounced Northam’s words as “terrible.”

“I thought it was terrible,” he said. “Do you remember when I said Hillary Clinton was willing to rip the baby out of the womb? That’s what it is, that’s what they’re doing, it’s terrible.”

“This is going to lift up the whole pro-life movement like maybe it’s never been lifted up before,” he added. “The pro-life movement is very much a 50-50, it’s a very 50-50 issue, actually it’s gained a point or two over the years.”

Angel dad Chris Odette questioned why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has not presented a bill to tear down the border wall if she really thinks it is “immoral.”

Odette, a military veteran, told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview Wednesday that he has tweeted Speaker Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer numerous times, inviting Pelosi to meet and talk about his daughter’s death, but he has received no response.

Odette’s daughter, Chrishia Odette, was just 13 years old when, on September 12, 2014, unlicensed driver and illegal alien Ramiro Tolentino Guevara careened into the girl’s body. Odette recounted the authorities’ description of the blood that streamed from her face after being struck and the professionals who said she may have lived for minutes with her injuries before dying.