OPINION:
“The antiabortion movement is turning on Trump,” was a headline that ran in The Wall Street Journal this week.
Pro-life groups, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, are frustrated with President Trump, as the article detailed, because his administration’s policy allows states (and thereby their residents) to decide abortion policy. Total abortions in the U.S. have slightly increased since the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, despite widespread state bans.
“Trump is the problem. The president is the problem,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony, told The Journal.
No, Marjorie. President Trump is not the problem. He has been the most pro-life president in history. The Supreme Court justices he nominated in his first administration overturned Roe. His second administration has expanded the Mexico City Policy that bars foreign assistance from subsidizing abortion, ended the use of fetal tissue of aborted babies to be used in federally funded research, started an investigation into small-business loans given to Planned Parenthood during the Biden administration and rescinded eight Biden-era guidance documents that promoted and mandated abortions, abortion drugs and abortion coverage by insurance companies.
Last month, Mr. Trump’s Justice Department released a report on how the Biden administration targeted Christians and Catholics through weaponized law enforcement, including disproportionately targeting pro-life demonstrators using the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act while being less responsive to violent attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers. Mr. Trump’s Justice Department has pledged to rectify these past injustices and has implemented several changes to its protocol in choosing which cases to prosecute that safeguard religious freedom.
Mr. Trump is not the problem. The pro-life movement’s problem is that it didn’t have a game plan after the fall of Roe to win over the hearts and minds of voters in 30 states and the District of Columbia that have legalized abortion. Yes, a national strategy is easier for these nonprofits to organize around, but a grassroots effort is needed to effectuate change at the state level.
This month, Rep. Brandon Gill, Texas Republican, gave a master class on exactly how you do this in a congressional hearing on the FACE Act with an abortion activist. He questioned the activist on her preferred method of abortion, to which she replied she didn’t have one.
He then detailed the different and barbaric methods used to perform the procedure. With the suction method, strong suction tears apart the baby’s body. In the dilation and curettage method, a baby’s body is cut apart by a looped knife and extracted. Through the dilation and evacuation method, the baby is dismembered by forceps and removed. In the saline method, a salt solution is injected into the womb, burning and killing the baby.
As Mr. Gill, in a painful and clinical manner, described each method to the activist, she became visibly irritated and tried to redirect the conversation to another topic. Confronted with the realities of the practice is something the pro-abortion group would like to gloss over under the guise of “reproductive services” and the slogan of “my body, my choice,” which are much more palatable to the general public.
Mr. Gill pressed further, asking the abortion advocate whether she agreed that each abortion method sounded “pretty gruesome.” Mr. Gill didn’t allow her to hide behind the euphemism of health care and exposed abortion for the horrific practice that it actually is: The murder of an unborn life. When the public actually hears of the process of what goes into removing a baby from a mother’s womb, it is a lot less likely to support the procedure. Most would be utterly repulsed. This is how you win voters’ hearts and minds.
Yes, the Trump administration has been slow to roll back Biden-era rules allowing the abortion pill to be prescribed online and shipped through the mail, even to states that outlaw the practice. Other accusations say Mr. Trump’s Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Marty Makary, is slow-walking a promised safety review of the abortion drug mifepristone.
Many reports also indicate growing frustration within the administration with Mr. Makary’s performance in his role and that he may be replaced shortly. Give it time.
Still, the true fight isn’t at the national level; it is at the state level.
The Trump administration has achieved the major accomplishment of overturning Roe v. Wade; it is now time for the pro-life activists to take their fight to the states and convince the voters who fell for Planned Parenthood’s rhetoric exactly what they are supporting.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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