Physician-assisted suicide, discrimination against children with Down syndrome, adoption, born-alive infant protection and abortion together form a cluster of policy debates called “life issues.” Historically, pundits consider these as the “third rail” of politics to be avoided whenever possible.
In recent years, this widespread reluctance to talk about life issues has been giving way to a bolder advocacy. But this has been a one-sided change. Extremists on the left have taken to advocating for abortion up through the moment of birth. We have seen lawmakers strip away protections from newborn survivors of abortion. Others, like Governor Gordon, have vetoed protections approved by supermajorities in both House and Senate.
Despite the rise of such extremism, pro-life politicians are still largely silent. Perhaps it is because there is a direct correlation between income and pro-abortion attitudes. Those who make over $100,000 per year identify as pro-choice 62-percent of the time. While both middle-income and low-income demographics have strong majorities that identify as pro-life.
Since super-rich donors make up the bread and butter of both parties, there is great pressure on the pro-life side to self-censor. In any case, pro-life voters have grown accustomed to being taken for granted.
This is especially true at national conventions in an election year. In years past, both Democrat and Republican pro-lifers been denied a meaningful voice in this discussion. Last week, however, that changed in a big way.
The first hint of the seismic change came an hour and twenty minutes into the Republican Party Convention. Cancer survivor, Natalie Harp, was there to talk about the right-to-try executive order that saved her life.
After being diagnosed with terminal cancer that was unresponsive to traditional therapies, she asked for a promising new drug, only to be denied. She said, “I was told I was a burden to my family and to my country, and that by choosing to die early, I’d actually be saving the lives of others by preserving resources for them, rather than wasting them on a lost cause like myself.”
In that moment, she learned how the ideology of assisted suicide hindered her ability to access the clinical trials. This was the first time that any party convention had ever condemned physician-assisted suicide. It set the stage for much more to come.
The following night, Abby Johnson, the former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic, was given the microphone. She told the convention how her transition from abortion advocate to an advocate for life came on the first day that she was asked to leave her desk and see for herself the procedure that earned her salary.
“Nothing prepared me for what I saw on the screen, an unborn baby fighting back, desperate to move away from the suction,” she recalled. “And I’ll never forget what the doctor said next, ‘Beam me up Scotty.’ The last thing I saw was a spine twirling around in the mother’s womb before succumbing to the force of the suction.”
Words such as these had never before been spoken at a convention of either party. They broke through all the abstract euphemisms meant to hide the reality of abortion. “You see, for me, abortion is real. I know what it sounds like. I know what abortion smells like. Did you know abortion even had a smell?”
Those words reverberated around the internet like a rifle shot. In less than five minutes, this abortion insider was able to paint a vivid picture that cut through the jargon. After this, her conclusion could no longer be heard as a mere platitude: “Life is a core tenet of who we are as Americans.”
She was followed immediately by Nick Sandmann. He is the teen from Covington, Kentucky who was viciously attacked for the crime of being a Catholic boy at a pro-life rally, who was wearing a MAGA hat.
He reminisced, “Looking back now, how could I have possibly imagined that the simple act of putting on that red hat would unleash hate from the left and make myself the target of network and cable news networks nationwide?” His indictment of the irresponsible media was stinging. “The full war machine of the mainstream media revved up into attack mode. They did so without researching the full video of the incident, without ever investigating Mr. Phillips’ motives, or without ever asking me for my side of the story. And do you know why? Because the truth was not important.”
Sandmann’s observations cemented the point that Abby Johnson exposed. Both the truth about pro-life marches and the details of the abortion procedure are hidden by media outlets because predetermined narratives are more important than the truth.
Later that night, New Mexico police officer, Ryan Holets, told his story. It began with an encounter with two heroine users and ended with the protection of an unborn child and the rescue of a young woman from addiction.
Crystal, caught in the act of shooting up, was obviously pregnant. Holets saw more than a perp, he saw a human in need. They talked and “she confided that she loved her unborn baby. She wanted the best for her child,” he remembered. “In that moment, I saw her the way that all of you who know and love an addict see them, as fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, cousins, and friends, as human beings full of value and dignity but robbed of their potential by this disease.”
Crystal wanted help to rescue both herself and her unborn child from the ravages of heroine. On the spot, she asked Holets to adopt her child. “God showed me exactly what I had to do,” he told us. “Without hesitation, I told her that my family would welcome her baby through adoption.”
A commonly repeated canard is that pro-lifers care only about the unborn, not the born. This story, told on the national stage, helped dispel that myth. I, personally, know of multiple families who, when asked to adopt an at-risk child, answered the call without even a moment of hesitancy.
Nor is this observation limited to healthy babies. Many joyfully adopt babies with physical and medical challenges as well. Such people see all life equally as a gift from God. They do not place people on a scale and value any one more than another.
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| Officer Ryan Holets |
The following evening, the story of Tera Lee Myers’ child, reminded us that not all people think that way. She told us, “Before Samuel was even born, I was told his life wouldn’t be worth living. When early tests revealed he had Down syndrome, our doctor encouraged me to terminate the pregnancy.” Sadly, such blatant discrimination is not uncommon. In America, approximately two-thirds of children with Down syndrome are terminated.
The discrimination does not stop there. Her story went on to tell how school officials did not want to waste resources in teaching him properly. She fought for a better choice and won. Now Samuel speaks for himself to say, “School choice helped my dreams come true. My school taught me the way I learn best. I was able to fit in. I made many friends. I became a part of my community. My teachers helped me become the best I can be.”
Sister Deidre Byrne, a medical doctor, then spoke about “those fleeing, war-torn and impoverished countries all around the world. Those refugees all share a common experience. They have all been marginalized, viewed as insignificant, powerless and voiceless. And while we tend to think of the marginalized as living beyond our borders, the truth is the largest marginalized group in the world can be found here in the United States. They are the unborn.” This truth is as plain as the nose on your face. Still, it was stunning to hear it spoken at a major party convention.
The final night of the convention proved that these speeches did not merely slip under the radar. The presidential candidate himself said in the strongest terms that it is the moral and legal responsibility of every politician to protect every human life.
Addressing the recent rash of radical abortion policies, he condemned any party that “supports the extreme late-term abortion of defenseless babies, right up until the moment of birth.” He called out those that “talk about moral decency, but they have no problem with stopping a baby’s beating heart in the ninth month of pregnancy.” He excoriated those who “refuse to protect innocent life, and then …lecture us about morality and saving America’s soul.”
Whatever you think of this year’s presidential candidates, pro-life Americans can rejoice that the barrier of silence at national conventions has now been shattered. We can all “proudly declare that all children, born and unborn, have a God-given right to life.”
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