OP-ED: The Abortion Abolitionist Case For Voting Trump
Editor’s note. On occasion we publish OP-EDs from outside parties that we may not necessarily agree with in whole or in part, but which serve to spark the conversation.
Over the past several months, a debate over whether President Trump should receive the votes of Christians has broken out amongst abortion abolitionists. A number of abolitionist organizations and prominent abolitionists have accused those abolitionists who support Trump of grave compromise to the abolitionist cause, with some even going so far as to call casting a vote for Trump “sinful”. Anti-Trump abolitionist memes have stated that those who vote for Trump will “crawl over the bodies of dead babies”.
While large abolitionist organizations such as Abolition Rising and its founder T Russell Hunter have promised to oppose the election of Trump unless he abandons his squishy pro-life position and embraces abolition, the abolition movement is not monolithic, and many abolitionists will choose to vote for President Trump, all the while maintaining their abolitionist beliefs.
The Lesser of Two Evils
Despite being the President who appointed the Supreme Court Justices who overturned Roe, President Trump has not helped the case for his election amongst abolitionists, as he has repeatedly softened his pro-life rhetoric during this election cycle to appeal to moderate and leftist voters. He makes statements that even pro-life voters cannot support, and then summarily backpedals with statements intended to downplay previous rhetorical compromises and renew his appeal for conservative support that is understandably wavering along with Trump’s seemingly ever-changing policy positions on abortion. The Republican party itself, once a bastion of Christian conservatism now resembles the Democrat party of the 1990s. The platform is slowly shifting left with elements of the party openly embracing big government, elements of sexual deviancy, soft woke identity politics, and most disturbingly safe and rare abortion. If Bill Clinton was still eligible to run for President, he would fit right into the Republican party of 2024.
Nevertheless, the only viable alternative to a Trump presidency is a Kamala Harris presidency, which in comparison makes a potential Trump victory look like paradise for an abolitionist. If elected, Kamala Harris will do everything in her power to expand and universalize abortion rights on a federal level. Democrats have already discussed eliminating the filibuster rule to pass abortion rights legislation, a move that if successful would nullify the hard-fought victory of overturning Roe, which was attained through President Trump’s efforts to appoint conservative justices. Under the Biden administration, pro-life and abolition abortion protesters alike faced federal prosecution under the FACE (Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances) act, with sentences that commonly exceed 10 years. With overzealous federal prosecutors emboldened by an administration that wants to push abortion rights and punish abortion protests, a Harris Presidency would likely see a dramatic increase in clinic protest arrests. The platform of the Republican party is a definite deviation from conservative Christian values, but the platform of the Democrat party is an abomination that directly defies God on nearly every major policy point.
No Christian should feel satisfied with the state of American politics, as we are clearly under a state of judgment from God, a fact affirmed by the choice that we face in this Presidential election. With that said, there is clearly a distinct difference between the abortion policy positions of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Trump would allow the promotion of laws that are influenced by the moral law of God, while Harris would persecute those who seek to exercise the Christian faith in the public square. Clearly abortion would not be abolished under either candidate, A Trump presidency would allow for the battle for abolition to continue at the state level, but a Harris Presidency would create a potential disaster for abolitionists at the Federal, State, and local levels, as abortion rights advocates would undoubtedly advance their legislation on all levels and persecute abortion protesters with the prosecutory power of the Harris Justice Department. Trump is by far the lesser of two evils in the 2024 Presidential race.
Purity to the nth degree
Abolitionists who support Trump and abolitionists who won’t vote for him should be able to agree that for the Christian, life under a Trump administration would be more favorable than life under a Harris administration. The nature of the abolitionist argument that abortion should be abolished without compromise rather than gradually outlawed gives individuals who hold to abolition a predisposition to view other items peripheral to the law itself, including elections, with similar views toward uncompromising purity. If the law must be abolitionist and nothing else, then shouldn’t the political candidates that we elect be abolitionists and nothing else? This question, one that is held most near and dear to those abolitionists who will not vote for Trump is a valid question, but it should lead to further questions. Why is the choice to either vote for Trump or abstain from voting entirely, an action that has relatively little individual personal consequence, held as one of the highest questions for individuals in the abolitionist movement at this moment? While the presidency is the highest office in the land, there are many more issues peripheral to the issue of abortion that are much closer to the individual than personal voting.
A number of abolitionists and abolitionist leaders, including the aforementioned T Russell Hunter, belong to churches that continue to belong to the Southern Baptist Convention. While the churches themselves are not compromised, the Southern Baptist Convention itself has been caught up in a theological downgrade for a number of years. Woke elements and egalitarianism are on the rise in the SBC, as the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC continues to support a squishy “whole life” pro-life position that uses the pro-life argument to lobby for womb to tomb wealth redistribution programs while treating women who chose abortion as innocent victims. Some have chosen to leave the SBC on principle, as the organization is clearly in a state of prolonged theological decline, while others have chosen to stay on the principle that the SBC is too big to surrender to the liberals. The latter believe that the SBC can be reformed over time. However, virtually no one in the conservative camp of the SBC believes that the necessary changes will happen overnight.
Why is the issue of conservative churches either leaving or staying in the SBC relevant to the issue of whether to vote for President Trump or abstain from voting entirely? The answer is that both are issues related to Biblical wisdom and not issues related to sin. The conservatives who leave the SBC and those who stay and hold out hope for the institution both hold to the same values. They all hate wokeism, egalitarian compromise, theological drift, and the corrupt legacy of Russell Moore. They all have strong Biblical convictions that are founded in the word of God, yet some stay and some leave. Their decisions to leave or stay are not based on compromise. On the contrary, though they come to different conclusions on how to proceed, both are acting in faith.
In the same way, abolitionists who will chose to vote for President Trump and those who will abstain from voting both hold to the same Biblical conviction that abortion is murder. They both long for God to change President Trump’s heart and give him a heart of principle that will fight for the unborn in an uncompromising way. A vote for Trump will not mutate an abolitionist into an incrementalist, in the same way that remaining in the SBC will not mutate a conservative into a woke progressive. A vote for President Trump is not a blanket approval of his policy positions. A vote for the lesser of two evils is not a compromised religious sacrament, but rather a question of wisdom that is binary in nature.
There is an appeal to purity within the abolitionist movement that is faithful to God’s word, but if abolitionists are not careful, the appeal to purity will turn into a legalism that confuses issues of Biblical wisdom with issues of sin, a situation that could potentially splinter the abolition movement into a thousand little tribes with varying legalistic views on how to faithfully live out abolition in daily life. The wisest move in this Presidential election is to plead with President Trump on the basis of word of God, threaten that the anti-abortion vote cannot be taken for granted, vote for the lesser of two evils, and treat those who abstain from voting with the utmost respect and care as brothers who cannot vote for Trump because their vote would not come from faith.
But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
Romans 14:23
May God have mercy on our nation and through the proclamation of the Gospel bring about better days than these, a time when leaders fear God and protect the pre-born.
About Author
It’s the single most important issue we face. I must believe that God is certainly more concerned about the death of millions of innocents than our economy, climate or borders. Surely we will be accountable for our inaction or indifference. Even though my vote will be ‘thrown away’ I plan to vote for or write in an Abolitionist. “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” John Adams
The Constitutional Party candidate, Randall Allen Terry is a strong Abolitionist. He’s been arrested 49 times for peaceful civil disobedience and founded Operation Rescue. Unfortunately, (according to Wiki) he left his wife of 19 years for his secretary and seems to have converted to Roman Catholicism. So I’m struggling with whether his abolitionist stand outweighs these points or if I need to just find a write-in candidate. There will probably never be a perfect candidate. Just searching for one as close as possible.
I’m not sure life under a Trump administration will actually be better. Did everyone forget 2020?
The biggest power grab in American history happened under his administration and with his full approval. He was supposed to be the only one who had the spine to drain the swamp, but when we needed him most, he put his tail betweem his legs. The man is a coward.
This article is much appreciated, particularly the last statements respecting that each must do according to his conscience. However, I’m not sure Romans 14, and similar passages, that address the quarreling over whether or not to eat meat, which day of the week to meet, whether or not to be circumcised, and so on, would necessarily apply. As each of the issues of disagreement were not sinful either way, unless one tried to claim that they were necessary or required, in which case it would become sinful, putting the individual back under the law rather than grace. The point being made is that those things are not sinful, and therefore there should be no quarreling, specifically because they’re not sinful.
You can’t contrast sin against faith, in such a manner. As if to say to accept or overlook sin is to live by faith. Voting for the wholesale slaughter of the unborn, turning sexual immorality into a protected class, or any other sin, and call it an act of faith. That’s not faith. It’s the opposite of faith. Foremost the faith that God absolutely will do and judge exactly how, what, and why, He has said that He will.
That’s nothing like any decision whether or not to endorse eating pork, meat sacrificed to idols, meeting on Saturday vs. Sunday, covering the head or not, getting circumcised or not, and such issues that are addressed in Romans 14 and similar passages.
All that said, I’ve sworn not to talk about politics until after the election. Let each do according to his conscience, as he believes the Lord leads.
But I will go so far as to say that I agree with the fact that the choice is basically whether or not to vote republican or not vote at all. That’s a matter of conscience. Whereas voting for the democrat platform, on the other hand, is a matter of having no conscience at all.