When President Trump speaks at the March for Life on Friday, it will be a moment of both triumph and peril for the pro-life movement.
It’s a triumph because it’s the first time a president has ever addressed the March in person. President George W. Bush never spoke to the March for Life. He always had other obligations, somehow, like his father before him and even President Ronald Reagan. So, while Democratic presidents have firmly and shamelessly attached themselves to the abortion industry and the abortion lobby, Republicans until now have kept the pro-life movement at an arm’s length.
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It’s a peril because people tend to jump from praising the good deeds of a man to praising the character of the man. The pro-life movement will lose moral credibility if its largest annual event becomes an occasion for declaring Trump a man of good character.
Yes, every pro-lifer should praise Trump’s record. Our editorial does exactly that, and rightly so:
That’s why some call him the most pro-life president ever.
But, consider the scene at the March of Life. Thousands of school children, many educated in Catholic or other Christian schools, will be in attendance. They are impressionable. Many speakers will rightly praise Trump’s record and thank him for addressing the march. But it will be very easy to slip into praising the man more broadly. That will be a morally confusing message to the young pro-lifers there.
Trump cheated on all three of his wives and bragged about it. He may have also cheated on his current wife with a porn star — and, either way, he used his sketchy, unethical lawyers to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover it up. He has bragged about sexually assaulting women and walking in on young women in the changing rooms of beauty pageants.
He constantly displays the very character traits we all try to make sure our children never acquire. Trump is what Christian parents raise their sons not to be.
Confusingly, he also happens to advance many policies that protect Christians from the state and protect the unborn from abortion.
The speakers at the March for Life ought to praise Trump’s record, but they should stop short of praising his character.
