In his first weeks as president, Donald J. Trump dove right in and took some significant pro-life actions. He started by signing the Mexico City Policy, which prevents federal money from funding out-of-country abortions. He pardoned jailed pro-lifers and released them from prison. He removed Biden’s pro-abortion government website. He penned an executive order declaring that life begins at conception. And he enforced the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funds from paying for domestic abortions.
These actions all mark incredible strides in the effort to return our country to a nation that respects and cherishes all human beings, but they are only a start.
Building a culture of life is not easy, and steps like the ones the president has already taken help immensely. Yet we know that Trump can do better than this. He has a long way to go in the defense of preborn babies, as he still advocates for a 15-week abortion ban and for in vitro fertilization. These actions fly in the face of his acknowledgment — and the truth — that life begins at conception, and they imply that the less mature and younger preborn babies do not have the same value as their older preborn peers.
We hope and pray that President Trump will come to understand the humanity of every preborn child. This is not a baseless, unlikely, or far-fetched hope. As dramatic as Trump’s possible enlightenment may sound, it has happened in the Oval Office once before.
Reagan’s 180 on Abortion
America’s 40th president, Ronald Reagan, became pro-life by degrees. In fact, he admitted as much in 1981 when, at his first White House meeting with pro-life leaders, he referred to his previous pro-abortion position. As governor of California, Reagan signed abortion into state law and he spent the rest of his life regretting that executive act.
Reagan’s pro-life beliefs were brought about through the prayers and influence of close advisors and by the efforts of an accomplished surgeon and physician named Mildred Fay Jefferson who tirelessly lobbied for the lives of the preborn.
The seeds planted by Jefferson, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and a staunch pro-life advocate, took root in Reagan’s conscience. As he wrote in Abortion: The Conscience of the Nation, “We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life.”
President Reagan published those words in 1983, and as we know, he grew into that viewpoint with what I suggest was a mixture of grace, wisdom, and honesty.
The question is, will President Trump evolve in the same way as President Reagan? Only time will tell, but there is recent evidence that should give us cause for hope. In addition to the pro-life actions of Trump’s first weeks in office, we remember Vice President JD Vance’s October 2024 statement that a Trump administration would defund Planned Parenthood. This would be a huge pro-life victory — one that would save millions of preborn lives and stop forcing taxpayers to support America’s largest baby killer.
Planned Parenthood received approximately $700 million in taxpayer dollars for the fiscal year 2022-2023 (the last year that the abortion giant reported). A truly pro-life action would be for the Trump administration to dry up that golden goose and reallocate those monies to the 2,700 pro-life pregnancy help centers around the country. Those funds would no longer be used to kill children in utero but would offer help and hope to expectant mothers.
If we want to make our country stronger, we have to make its citizens stronger. To do this, we must educate, equip, and empower women as mothers. We must help expectant mothers and fathers see the value in their babies and give families the tools they need to succeed.
No Time for Compromise
Trump is an intelligent man. He has been through what some would call political hell. I believe this has only made him stronger. If this were not so, it is unlikely that he would be serving our nation as president for the second time.
Yet, as our returned national leader, Trump also understands the odds. He sees a nation divided along political lines on abortion, and he knows that the pro-abortion advocates will do anything possible to obfuscate the truth that every successful abortion results in the death of a child.
As President Trump charges into his new term, his own humanity will be defined by the way he responds to the tragic impact that abortion has had on our country. I think we see a glimpse of this in his empathic pardon of pro-life advocates prosecuted, convicted, and jailed for simply stating the truth that abortion kills people.
Now is not the time to compromise. Now is not the time to pick and choose which babies live and which die. All are valuable, all are worth saving, and Mr. President, we need you to understand and act upon this reality.
Reagan wrote how the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade had “become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.” That same prod also pokes at President Trump’s moral compass. With time, education, and courage, Trump can, if he so chooses, understand the truth that abortion is unacceptable at any stage.
Jesus Christ is King
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