Pro-Life Catholic Highlights Trump’s Winning Message on Abortion
CV NEWS FEED // Catholic attorney Tim Busch praised former President Donald Trump’s “winning message on abortion” in a Monday op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.
“The GOP hasn’t crowned its nominee for president, but the party has found what it’s sought for months: a winning message on abortion,” wrote Busch, the co-founder of the Napa Institute.
Busch argued that the fact that Trump is both pro-life and believes abortion should be a state issue “resonates with a majority of Republicans and could sway a majority of Americans, 55% of whom told Gallup that they oppose abortion in the second trimester.”
Busch added that Trump’s position, which he shares with his remaining primary rival Nikki Haley, “offers the pro-life movement the best chance at saving the unborn.”
“Mr. Trump’s position seems more or less grounded in political calculation,” Busch noted:
At a town hall shortly before the Iowa caucuses, he took credit for appointing justices who overturned Roe. At the same time, he said he supported exceptions for the “life of the mother, rape, incest” and wouldn’t push for strict bans in a second term. “I want to get something where people are happy,” he said. “You have to win elections.”
Polls “show that voters want something of a compromise” on abortion, Busch noted. “While Democrats have successfully run state and federal campaigns warning against national restrictions in the past two years, they’ll struggle to pull the same stunt with Mr. Trump or Ms. Haley.”
“Both candidates can shake their heads, smile at the camera, and honestly say: ‘I stand with the American people,’” wrote Busch:
Many in the pro-life movement are fearful of this development, concerned that the Republican Party is abandoning its principles for the sake of political expediency. They needn’t fret. Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley haven’t gone soft on abortion. They’re simply doing the hard work of being pro-life without alienating the majority of Americans who describe themselves as pro-choice.
“Critical to that approach is speaking up about abortion,” Busch emphasized. “Lives are at stake, and if the Republican Party won’t defend them, no one in politics will. Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley aren’t shy on the issue and stick to principle even as they admit political reality.”
>> 65% OF YOUNG VOTERS SUPPORT LIMITS ON ABORTION <<
A Gallup poll from May of last year (Gallup’s most recent on the topic) found that 44% of Americans considered themselves to be pro-life compared with 52% who called themselves “pro-choice.”
The same poll, however, found that only 34% of respondents believed that abortion should be “legal under any circumstances” – down one percentage point from the year before. Therefore, the remaining 66% believed that abortion should be limited.
Gallup’s finding was consistent with a Knights of Columbus poll from earlier in the same month, which also found that 66% of Americans favored some limits on abortion.
These results imply that a sizeable portion of people who identify as “pro-choice” in fact hold positions considerably out of step with those espoused by leaders in the Democratic Party, who since the fall of Roe have refused to support any limits on abortion whatsoever.
Another recent poll conducted by two pro-life organizations showed that 65% of young voters supported some abortion restrictions – a proportion statistically identical to that of the electorate at large.
A slight majority of the Gallup poll’s respondents – 51% – indicated they thought abortion should be legal, but only “under certain circumstances.” Thirteen percent of respondents said abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances.”
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