I am trying to figure out how to talk to my pro-life friends about Trump

 

A common refrain at this week's Republican National Convention was that Donald Trump "is the most pro-life president we've ever had." No matter where you stand on the topic, I think there's a fair case to be made that's the truth. He has appointed judges who emboldened state legislatures to take a fresh run at knocking down Roe v. Wade. The right to abortion may never be entirely stricken from precedent, given how Chief Justice John Roberts likes to operate, but it seems likely to be greatly narrowed into near-oblivion over the next few years. We'll see.

I grew up in small town Kansas. I attended an evangelical Mennonite Brethren college. A number of people I care about -- and love -- are passionately anti-abortion. This makes things uneasy between us: I don't much love abortion and I think the decision carries moral weight, but I think there are substantial issues of women's freedom and autonomy involved. So I end up on the pro-choice side of the ledger. But I respect why my pro-life friends feel the way they do.

This fall, I suspect many or most of them will be voting for Trump.

I think this is a tremendous mistake. Trump's indifference to life beyond the womb is well-documented by now -- his willingness to separate migrant families at the border, his eagerness to downplay COVID-19 testing that could save lives and prevent outbreaks because he thinks the numbers make him look bad, his gleeful defense and pardon of war criminals. Given his history of infidelity and promiscuity, I feel pretty sure his pro-life position is transactional.

Some of my pro-life friends are aware of this. One told me, a couple of years ago, that he knew Donald Trump was a bad person -- "but I also think maybe I should thank him, you know?"

There is no way this friend will ever vote for Joe Biden. I don't think I could ever persuade him too. If you think abortion is murder, how could you ever vote for a candidate or party that supports keeping it legal?

And yet: I am convinced that four more years of Donald Trump will be disastrous. That democracy will be grievously injured and that Americans, particularly minority Americans, will suffer. I'm honestly not sure that's avoidable at this point, anyway, but it feels more certain to me if we have a president who -- it seems obvious to me -- is intent on sowing division for his own advantage over one who might actually cares about things beside himself.

So I want to make the case to my pro-life friends that they should not vote for Trump.

But I am not sure that I can, or that the outcome is possible. They see the same country, the same man, that we do. They will vote for him anyway, because the thing that matters most to them is saving unborn lives. I get that. But I am worried for all of us who are already here. I feel like I share at least 90 percent of my morality with my pro-life friends. But that last few percentage points, whew. Their morality tells them to vote for Trump. Mine tells me to do anything but. I am not sure there is a meeting place between those two points.