Trump at a pro life rally – Esme Peters
This Friday President Trump became the first ever president to attend a pro-life rally in Washington (why the call it pro-life when restricting access ruins so many I’ll never know). Many Presidents have have contributed to the annual march, such as Ronald Reagan and George W Bush who both delivered speeches remotely but none have ever gone so far as actually showing up in person. The guardian writer Arwa Mahdawi believes this is a move of desperation, as his best chance of re-election is through securing the white Christian evangelical vote and as many a republican candidate before him going after women rights is an easy way to secure this.
While at the rally Trump made a 13-minute speech focused on his support for the pro-life movement and the religious community of America saying, “When we see the image of a baby in the womb we glimpse the majesty of God’s creation”.
Trump got 81% of the white Christian evangelical vote in the 2016 election and if he loses this base he’ll have a hard time getting re-elected. While Trump hasn’t lost favour with the family values crowd just yet, there are some small signs that his popularity among evangelicals may be growing more fragile. For example last month influential evangelical magazine ‘Christianity Today’ called for Trump’s removal from office following impeachment with the editor-in-chief, Mark Galli, writing, “The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see.” However it is the belief of many Americans that this will not prevent his re-election, as if he can evidence a crack down on abortion rights this would be seen as his pro-God credentials. This he tried to prove at the rally as he highlighted his commitment and past actions in the cutting of federal funding to abortion providers.
Trump’s time as President has empowered many states to crackdown on abortion rights for example in Ohio this year a bill was proposed that would force any doctors performing an abortion to then to attempt to re-implant ectopic pregnancies, a procedure which experts say does not currently exist. To not re-implant the pregnancy would be classed as “abortion murder” with a potential death penalty for offenders, affecting those receiving and performing abortions. This has been the most extreme abortion bill in decades, which law makers saw fit to create due to the pressure the Trump administration is putting on abortion clinics.
But it is not only Trump but his ministers and administrative members who are having an impact on the creation of such policy. For example, the health and human services secretary Alex Azar, an Orthodox Christian, released a statement describing the HHS as “the Department of Life” and saying he was proud “to serve as part of the most pro-life administration in this country’s history”. As a man who is the head of health in government this is a very scary stance for him to take, as an anti abortion stance is the removal of a healthcare procedure from those in need (and just saying but he has expressed no similar views on Vasectomy’s and newsflash but there’s no difference).
It is also approaching the three year anniversary since Trump reinstated the Global Gag rule, the rule (officially known as the Mexico City policy) bans US federal funding for international NGOs that provide abortion services or advocacy. Such a policy has had a disastrous effect on healthcare for women in Africa and south Asia. As Victor Rasugu, executive director and country team leader at Network for Adolescent and Youth of Africa (NAYA) in Kenya, has said, “This anti-health, anti-abortion and anti-woman policy has caused a ripple effect in Kenya. Clinics have shut their doors. Healthcare workers have lost their jobs. And people – especially women and young people – are losing access to critical medical care.”
His move in on women’s reproductive rights has been fast and furious, from his election of Conservative judges such as Brett Kavaugh who if Roe v Wade were to appear in the supreme court again would most likely be overturned (as is the hope for many Americans) to his cutting of federal funding (7 states now only have 1 abortion clinic in the whole state). Let us all just hope that Trump by some happy miracle gets removed from office (although unlikely I feel). So there you have it, another politically neutral article from me!
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