From the Desk of Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue
President Trump’s moderation of his pro-life stance is a product of the drastic culture shift against the sanctity of human life before birth.
As the saying goes, “politics is downstream from culture.” Unfortunately, “woke” pro-abortion influencers have been dumping anti-life sewage into our society’s “river” for years. This has polluted our culture worse than Lake Erie in the 1960’s and shifted politics away from the ideals championed by the first Trump administration that boldly promoted the sanctity of human life.
Just months before the 2016 election, a Gallup poll showed that 46 percent of Americans identified as pro-life – just two points below the all-time high in 2009. However, that year pro-life Americans placed a high importance on ending abortion and were more likely to cast their votes only for candidates that shared their pro-life views. I believe this was due, at least in part, to the gruesome videos Operation Rescue released one year previous as part of my leadership in the Center for Medical Progress (for which I was convicted of RICO and now owe $18M to Planned Parenthood). In any case, President Trump rode that pro-life enthusiasm into the White House in 2016. By nearly all media reports, it was the support of pro-life Americans and their grave concerns over the pro-abortion majority in the Supreme Court that earned him the surprise victory.
Once in office, President Trump fulfilled his campaign promises. He appointed a record number of conservative, pro-life Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. He was the only president in history to deny taxpayer-funded Title X money to Planned Parenthood, among his many other pro-life accomplishments.
Then, in 2020, President Trump narrowly lost his re-election bid to the radical pro-abortion Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Yet, thanks to President Trump’s pro-life Supreme Court appointees, Roe v. Wade was finally overturned in June 2022. This stunned the Abortion Cartel and their supporters and shook them out of their complacency.
Fast forward to 2024. Now, we are in a completely different position than we were in 2016. Gallup Polls taken this year show that the pro-life position now sits at a historical low. With prodding from the extremist Biden/Harris administration and their legacy media mouthpieces, eighty-five percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances. Only 12 percent want to end abortion.
Since the demise of Roe, we have lost eight statewide referendums on abortion. Bolstered by these victories, pro-abortion forces have placed abortion expansion initiatives on the 2024 general election ballots in ten more states.
The tide has turned, and the pro-life message is now considered a political liability that could prevent President Trump’s victorious return to the White House.
With Trump being a product of both the polls and culture, he knows he cannot win with the same agenda on abortion that propelled him to victory in 2016 – and win he must, if America is to be preserved as a Constitutional Republic.
The radical extremist team of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz threatens to demolish the America we love by dramatically expanding abortion, increasing persecution of pro-life activists, and amping up censorship along with other oppressive measures such as open borders, higher taxes, and continuing involvement in forever wars. An America under a Harris/Walz administration would be a bloody, morally debased Communist dystopia with increased abortions, a wrecked economy, non-existent border security, possible nuclear war with Russia and fewer freedoms.
While still pro-life, Trump’s current position on abortion, which is more moderate than many pro-life supporters would like, is simply a reflection of the will of the people. With so much of the electorate in opposition to ending abortion, he must take this uncomfortable course of moderation if he is to win.
As a staunch supporter of President Trump and the right to life, it pains me to point this out.
So, whose fault is it that we find ourselves in a climate where the pro-life position is no longer a winner at the ballot box, as it was for so many years?
After evaluating the terrible mistakes of the pro-life movement over the last several years, I can only conclude that it is our fault. We have had over 50 years to change the culture’s position on abortion only to have failed miserably. Although the pro-life movement has been responsible for closing 70% of the abortion clinics, saving millions of children, and electing scores of pro-life politicians, the disappointing result is that the American population is more pro-abortion than ever.
Operation Rescue was a movement that began on its knees in prayers of repentance for the national sin of child-killing, always acknowledging how our own inaction and apathy contributed. Many with us had even chosen abortion previously and now sought to make amends for such an egregious act. Somehow, that attitude has been lost. As a movement, we must return to our knees in the spirit of repentance.
We also must stop pointing fingers at politicians like President Trump, expecting them to meet ideals that are unreasonable in the current hostile political and social climate – a climate that our own ministries have failed to mitigate.
Today, seminaries and pulpits in our communities fail to thunder against child-killing. It is unreasonable to expect elected politicians to be held to a higher standard than our pastors currently meet, especially when desperately trying to win elections so they can stave off disaster for our country.
In Trump’s case, I believe he will stand with us if elected, based on the actions of his last term, which was the most pro-life administration in history.
It is also time for deep reflection and repentance of the pro-life movement, for if we remain on the same course, untold unborn lives will be lost along with our Republic.
If we are to ever create a government that values and protects innocent life, we must start in our own homes, churches and communities. The purified water of our own lives and movement would then flow downward into proper public governance. For streams do not run backwards.
