Election Thoughts
In case you’ve been living under a rock, tomorrow is election day in the United States. If you’ve voted early, great! If you haven’t voted yet, find your polling place here.
Secular Pro-Life was founded in the Obama years. We’ve lived through the Trump and Biden administrations. We’ve seen the highs and the lows. And we know that both potential outcomes of this presidential race pose unique challenges for the pro-life cause.
If Harris wins, she will build upon the pro-abortion policies of her predecessor. There is no question she would continue Biden’s policy of global taxpayer funding of abortion, destroying the lives of countless babies worldwide. Stateside, she will doubtless promote the illegal distribution of abortion drugs by mail. But unlike Biden, who once showed some pro-life sympathies before spinelessly caving to the political power of the abortion industry, Harris is a true believer. In her mind, pro-life people are not real Americans. She has no problem throwing peaceful protestors in prison, or raiding our homes.
A second Trump administration would not be as actively hostile to the right to life, but will not go out of its way to help either. As we wrote in 2015: “Trump’s opposition to abortion clearly is not rooted in respect for the immeasurable value of human beings. Respect is not part of Trump’s moral vocabulary. What it is rooted in, only he knows in his heart. My money is on simple pandering.” That statement (which, fun fact, we never retracted) has proved prescient, as Trump now says he would not sign federal legislation to end even third-trimester abortions. And once he has the pro-life vote and no longer needs us? Who the hell knows. We may be left with all of the downsides of associating the pro-life cause with Trump’s abrasive personality, and few or none of the upsides.
If you can’t stomach either presidential candidate, it’s still worth it to cast your ballot! There are pro-abortion referenda in ten states; your NO vote is critical. And don’t forget about the Congressional races. The House, which holds the power of the purse and is therefore key to passing the life-saving Hyde Amendment each year, could go either way. As for the Senate, it seems unlikely that either party will have 60 votes; polls predict that Republicans will comfortably win enough seats to preserve the filibuster, preempting a legislative reversal of Dobbs. But we cannot take anything for granted.
No matter what happens, Secular Pro-Life will never give up. Social change takes time and we all have a role to play. Every child who is spared from abortion is a victory.
I can’t say it any better than our executive director, Monica Snyder:
Of course I want us to be victorious. I want us to have expansive platforms, ample funding, and legions of voices to influence culture, transform laws, change hearts and minds — all of it. Yes, of course. But —
If I had no platform, zero dollars, and no friends alongside me in this fight — if all I had was my own, lone voice, and nothing more — then so be it. I’d use my lone voice to say “Abortion kills children. This is wrong. This should be illegal.”
My children were valuable before they were born. So were yours. So were you. So was I.
Monica Snyder
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