The End of the Pro-Life Movement

As we know it, anyway.

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Former President Donald Trump at the 47th March For Life on January 24, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

In the Republican Party, moral criticism can only properly be leveled against enemies of the grassroots right. Moral criticism of the base or one of its champions, if it’s to be made at all, must be presented as political criticism.

Although Trump is leading the Republican primary by a zillion points, for example, his opponents continue to resist saying that he’s unfit for office. That’s because complaints about character are moral complaints, and only Democrats would make such a complaint against a populist hero. To protect their partisan authenticity, Republican challengers must repackage their criticism of Trump’s unfitness as a political critique instead. A nominee who’s under indictment can’t win. He’s unelectable.

It’s a matter of demonstrating the correct priorities. The modern right treats its supreme (and really only) moral virtue as keeping the left out of power. Impugning Trump on moral grounds challenges that dogma by suggesting America might be better off with a Democrat as president than him. Impugning him on political grounds, on the other hand, is tolerated because it signals that one’s priorities are in line: Because defeating the left is supremely morally important, we must have a nominee—and an agenda—that can actually win.

I was thinking about that on Sunday while watching Trump extinguish what’s left of the pro-life movement during an interview on Meet the Press.

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  1. Emma

    Bingo! The right never had a solution or a plan to their pro life position. It was always a bumper sticker slogan to fundraise off of.

    But it will be fun to hear them preach how precious life is now. I guess it is only precious when convenient, which is essentially the abortion-on-demand position.

    This was predictable.

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    Bayesian

    "Because defeating the left is supremely morally important" - that's certainly closer to the revealed preferences of the Republican Party collectively than any particular policy option (though tax cuts come fairly close), but it appears that pwning the left, cf liberal tears, is even more important than defeating the left. Again judging by revealed preferences, notably a lot of 2022 Republican primary elections.

    For the record, I'm relatively more opposed to state-enforced restrictions on abortion than the median American poll respondent appears to be.

    With that caveat, being as objective as I can, even well before Dobbs I thought the broad movement that calls itself "pro-life", while certainly an important power player in Republican politics, was not anywhere near as irresistible a force as the gun rights crowd (again, a broad movement), as evidenced by their seemingly unique ability to get Trump to execute the occasional tactical retreat (cf bump stocks post Las Vegas shootings).

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  3. Stephen Clay Settle

    "Given a choice between a principled but almost certainly futile effort to defeat Trump for betraying her cause or piping down and adapting herself to his agenda in order to maintain a simulacrum of influence, Dannenfelser has seemingly chosen to play ball."

    Again, "The pro-life movement isn’t ending because it’s lost an ideological death struggle with a committed pro-choice activist. It’s ending because he needs it to go away lest it complicate his reelection bid and, to all appearances, some of its most influential players are willing to oblige."

    Nothing new here, sad to say.

    The pro-life movement made a "Faustian deal" back in the halcyon days of Ronald Reagan, if not before. It betrayed itself by envisioning itself as a "conservative" movement, rather than embracing its true position as a radical, dare I say progressive, force confronting nothing less than Americanism itself, understood as the apotheosis of autonomy and its idolatry of the unholy trinity of Me, Myself, and I.

    Pro-lifers opted to pursue their agenda as proper civil pietists, abjuring the sort of activism associated with the social and political radicals who preceded them. Whereas William Lloyd Garrison had burned a copy of the Constitution, declaring it "a contract with death and an agreement with hell," they signaled their willingness to return a 14th Amendment civil rights issue "to the states," affording such feticidal bastions as California and New York total license to keep dismembering children in the womb, unencumbered by national policy.

    Whereas rioters in Watts had shouted "Burn, baby, burn," lending a definite urgency to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for nonviolence BUT with racial justice, mainstream pro-life organizations decried even the peaceful resistance of pro-life direct activists at abortion mills across the nation.

    Most recently, Kevin Williamson has chastised such individuals, comparing them to climate-change activists on the Left. To be sure, the level of direct action required to cure America of its addiction to "choice" over the lives of the innocent preborn may prove in time to render that of your average "green" enthusiast modest and downright bourgeois in its impact on our political and social order.

    America is a cultural and political artifact founded by a gaggle of slave-holding deists whose only real aim was to gain access to indigenous lands denied them by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. That this entity would of late turn its animus toward a defenseless and undesired child in utero isn't all that surprising. For the past 50 years since Roe vs. Wade, the guiding wisdom of the Republican Party has been, "Give these religious wackos a flag to wave and a hymn to sing, and they'll turn out for us in droves, demanding little of substance in return."

    Unfortunately, it appears that attitude may continue to be validated by pro-lifers themselves unless and until they accept the admittedly discomforting realization that they are at odds with the American zeitgeist, i.e., that which holds that an inability to assert one's own interests, be it those of a slave or a prenatal child, disqualifies one from being regarded as a human life worthy of community respect and legal protection. Pro-lifers are attempting something not done before, even before Roe, and that is to advance federal personhood protection to human beings in gestation, though not yet born. Such will require judicial activism and a stacking of the courts with jurists sympathetic to this goal, something abhorred by "conservatives." For as Justice Blackmun himself declared in Roe, "If the fetus's personhood is established, the right to abortion, of course, collapses."

    Catoggio opines that we may be witnessing the end of the pro-life movement "as we have known it." I pray God he's right and moreover, that what rises from the ashes will embody a movement more aware of and at one with its true position in the marketplace of ideas and of the radical challenge it presents to a nation enthralled to the fiction of "exceptionalism" and self-deification.

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    1. Slowdave1

      I have such a hard time comprehending the flaming disgust and attributions of horribleness that the pro-choice side affixes to the pro-life side at every opportunity.

      What is so horrible about people wa ting to protect unborn babies? Okay, maybe you feel it's just a gaggle of cells and completely part of the woman's body and therefore her choice. I, as a pro-life person, understand your position and don't believe you are trying to subvert the US government, even though I strongly disagree. But believing that unborn child is a person with at least the right not to be killed, somehow makes me an enemy of the state and maybe of civilization?? What gives here? Just a continuation of EVERY topic and position is a flight 93 decision and anything necessary to win is on the table??

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      1. Stephen Clay Settle

        A State that permits the killing of innocent life under the rubric of personal autonomy, aka, "choice," loses its legitimacy. To embrace this understanding, indeed, inevitably positions one to being, for all intents and purposes, an adversary ("enemy") to that State, leastwise to the degree that one is determined to do whatever is necessary to resist and overturn the offending policy. Pro-lifers, most of whom are inclined to view themselves as uber-patriots and "law and order" conservatives, by and large have had a hard time accepting this reality. The coming days will see if they continue to nurture a sentimental view of "America Immaculata," or if they and their movement will transition into a force far less deferential to the bourgeois appetites of their host society and decidedly more militant in their devotion to saving lives.

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        1. Jfan

          I have never had any problem celebrating both the United States of America and William Lloyd Garrison, including his act of defiance at Framingham in 1854.

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      1. Stephen Clay Settle

        "Incineration" is the word.

        Like William Lloyd Garrison, I'd be willing to burn the damn thing and start over if it ever included an "Anti-Life Amendment" as sought by many pro-aborts.

        Your comments are typical of the libertarian mindset that long has dominated American culture and politics. It is rooted in infantilism and ultimately leads to nihilism.

        But go ahead and wave your flag. In fact, you can have mine.

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          1. Stephen Clay Settle

            I reckon I must've "socked" it to ya.

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  4. Pohl

    Trump’s Hand just harms whatever it touches; this week, it’s the pro-life plank of the GOP. The pro-life movement will have to lose some ties, just like us NeverTrumpers who’ve said bon voyage to the GOP, for now. By the way, what abortion ballot in Ohio are you talking about, Nick? That hasn’t happened yet.

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      John

      He may have had in mind the August 2023 ballot measure that would have increased the threshold for amending the state constitution through a popular vote. The threshold is at 50% and Republican legislators wanted to increase it to 60% as a way to fend off a change to enshrine abortion in the constitution. The proposal failed.

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      1. Pohl

        Yes, I think that’s where link went, but it was still inaccurate to describe it as such.

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    2. 632.8

      I believe Nick mentions the 2019 Ohio “ban” (not “ballot”) that went into effect following Dobbs, but was stayed indefinitely last year. Final disposition depends on the upcoming amendment vote, for which electorate recently refused to change to a supermajority.

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      1. Pohl

        He mentioned a referendum. But he meant the one on passing amendments. It wasn’t about abortion, strictly speaking.

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  5. Rblik

    Trump brags about getting rid of Roe v Wade....and then calls the resulting 6 week abortion bans passed in red states...."a terrible thing". Oh brother. Trump is just your standard "pro-choice lite" Democrat. The 6 week bans were just as important as the repeal of Roe itself. The battle is at the state level now, so these pro-lifers better wise up about how Trump is actively sabotaging them. His cult will now work against them. Roe isn't coming back...so stop excusing Trump.

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    Soniak21

    Let's first stipulate Trump's bottomless depravity, ignorance of policy, and defective moral compass that points only toward his short-term political/financial interests. Let's then acknowledge the slavish groveling and flagrant hypocrisy of his cult. All that's as real and odious as ever.

    With all that said, I detect something strangely... HEALTHY... in all this. What we see right now is the abortion debate playing out in the real world among real people and real stakes and real political incentives. While I haven't deeply studied how Europe arrived at its (largely moderate) abortion laws, I'd guess the process was something like this: a normal give-and-take based on real-world factors.

    For far too long, Americans fought the abortion battle in the abstract—and that's the fault of Roe v. Wade. Roe established a national policy where there was no national consensus. It took abortion out of the political arena when no one was done fighting about it.

    All that did was stifle what was a very real debate. It made the pro-choice side complacent: Why engage with the moral complexity of the issue when you can loftily proclaim abortion a "human right" (as enshrined by Roe)? As for the pro-life side: It made them fanatical. Why give an inch when you know your extreme policies can never become law anyway?

    The healthy thing is that we're back in the real world on abortion. The positions you could take when abortion wasn't a real-live policy matter no longer work. And that part's good.

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  7. Janicewfahy

    Trump leading ProLIFE, Inc. (the most malign electoral force of this century) out of U.S. politics proves that God writes straight with crooked sticks.

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    Rjosephpaquette

    Trump is unelectable. Tweaking around the edges on abortion dates isn’t going to get him to a majority of the votes. Something he’s never garnered in a contested election. Never.

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    1. Janicewfahy

      In fact, I'll pay you $1,000 for each American woman you bring me who doesn't throw up in her mouth a little bit when she contemplates Trump contemplating the contents of her uterus.

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        Rjosephpaquette

        Does Stormy count? She probably laughs when she thinks about Trump and sex. Laughs all the way to the bank.

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  9. Erik Bliss

    I'm not so sure all of us conservatives have the same view of "precisely what overturning Roe was supposed to achieve."

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    1. Emma

      The right had no idea either. It ead always to fundraise. They don't care about life. They cared about elections.

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      1. Stephen Clay Settle

        Democrats have held that life doesn't begin until birth. They're pushing that forward a bit now to suggest that it really doesn't begin until maybe three months or so following one's birthday.

        Republicans basically believe that life doesn't begin until you've banked your first million. From its inception until now, the GOP has proved its willingness to subordinate human rights and human lives to ideological conceit and political expedience.

        To expect a party that historically has held such scant enthusiasm for the civil rights of the born to expend its political capital on securing the right to life for the preborn was a fool's fantasy from the start.

        And I say this as one who favors a SCOTUS finding of 14th Amendment personhood for prenatal people.

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  10. Austin R

    no refunds!

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