Pro-Life

By Carmel Richardson, First Things - Previously, the twenty-week ban had been the bare minimum offer from the GOP, one moderate enough to have been a party plank through several election cycles. Trump endorsed it, and its concurrent statement on constitutional rights for unborn children, in 2016 and 2020... The broader movement’s shift raises an important question: Do Trump and Vance now sincerely favor more liberal abortion policies, or are they playing election politics, with the knowledge that no change can come without first securing the ballot box?

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture - If J.D. Vance is the future of American conservatism— as some enthusiasts are saying, in the wake of his effective debate performance— then I’m afraid American conservatism has become incoherent on the abortion issue... Last night Vance, who is a convert to Catholicism, and in the past has strongly endorsed a ban on abortion, offered no resistance to the liberal claim that women have a “right” to abort their babies. He clung adamantly to the line taken by Donald Trump, saying that the issue must be left to the states, signaling that he was willing to accept state laws that allowed for abortion in virtually all circumstances.

By Chuck Donovan, LifeNews - Without doubt, the last year and more has been a rough patch for the pro-life cause, even outside the realm of ballot questions and electoral politics. The surest sign of difficulty is the sharp division among pro-life forces about what course of action to take to advance the right to life... On July 9, the movement, already hampered by having few advocates outside the Republican Party, found itself with a national GOP platform in which pro-life policy positions had been sharply curtailed. ...