Looking at the situation with former President Trump is more than a little disheartening. For those of you who don’t know he recently gave his public stance on abortion. What Trump intended to be a unifying statement that would rally centrist votes to him, seems to be turning people against him. But even though we are all angry at Trump right now, doesn’t mean we are all angry at him for the same reasons. The right is angry at him for one reason, and the left is angry at him for another reason. So I wanted to take a moment to dissect his comments to see what he had to say.

Many people have asked me what my position is on abortion and abortion rights. . . It must be remembered that the Democrats are the radical ones on this position because they support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month.

Christians should be the first to point out that the logical consequence of the pro-choice position is infanticide. Speaking from personal experience, I have met people who would support post-birth “abortions.” However, it is a hasty generalization to say that all Democrats believe this. And, there is a reason that Trump makes the generalization that he does. Trump is trying to show that his position is not really that radical by comparison. But here’s the problem. Democrats aren’t radical because they (allegedly) support abortion up to and beyond nine months. Democrats (and even many who call themselves pro-life) are radical because they believe that the mother should be allowed to murder her child with legal impunity.

 Trump goes on to articulate his position by saying that he believes that it should be decided by the states. Listen to this:

My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint. The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.

The bottom line is that Trump does not think abortion is murder. If he did he would recognize it as a federal crime. What Trump thinks he’s doing is defending State’s rights, or what Reformed protestants might call “the doctrine of the lesser magistrates.” But this isn’t what’s happening. What he’s doing is giving the state’s permission to disobey federal law. Federal law says “murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.” Children in the fetal stage of development are under every definition “human beings,” both scientifically and morally.

Democrats have been quick to point out that most Republicans have no right to be mad at Trump, and to an extent, I actually agree with them. The Republicans were calling for it to be pushed to the States just a moment ago right as Roe was being overturned, and now Trump is simply being consistent with that platform. So Trump might say to the so-called “Pro-Life” Republicans “Wait, I thought you wanted this?” All Trump is doing is saying the quiet part out loud. Unfortunately, the “Pro-Life” industry has never really been in favor of criminalizing abortion. He makes this clear in the next part of his statement:

 Like Ronald Reagan, I am strongly in favor of exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. 

He appeals to Reagan, a fan favorite, to bolster his position. Fair enough. But then he says that he is in favor of exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. Rape and incest are not legitimate justifications for abortion. Furthermore, abortion is never medically necessary. The hypothetical situation where an abortion is required to save the life of the mother simply does not happen. Abortion is murder: No exceptions.

Often we will hear from people who try to justify abortion using these difficult circumstances by saying “It’s unfair that a woman should have to bear the child of her rapist.” The answer to this is simple. Yes, it is unfair. It is disgusting and immoral and the man who did that deserves the death penalty. But you don’t answer evil with evil. You don’t create justice by committing another injustice. There are born children alive today who are the products of rape and still physically dependent upon their caretakers. Do we have the right to kill them because they are dependent? Rape is not a valid justification for abortion

Incest is an even clearer case. Just because a child will have potential problems growing up, whether that be health or relationship concerns, doesn’t mean we have the right to kill them. If Trump thinks there should be an exception that gives the right to kill unborn people who are the results of incest, then why does he think that it should be illegal to kill a born person who is the product of incest? Incest is no excuse for murder.

While there are rare cases where complications arise and the mother’s life can be at risk, in none of these cases is it advantageous to the life of the mother to abort the baby. I have learned from listening to abortion abolitionist Hayden Rhodea that these complications can always be mitigated through emergency c-section, expectant management, or premature delivery. Expectant management is the most common treatment option, and this is when parents wait for the problem to resolve itself while providing the necessary medical care to both the woman and the child. When this does not work, sometimes women have to either perform an emergency c-section or induce premature labor. A c-section can be performed in a matter of minutes, while an abortion can take multiple days. In rare cases, such as in the case of ectopic pregnancy, a child must be born prematurely through induced labor or emergency c-section with the unfortunate consequence that the child perishes. This is simply because we do not have the technology required for fetal development outside of the womb. But in no case is it medically necessary to deliberately kill an unborn baby and then deliver the baby dead.

Trump demonstrated abject moral failure in these comments. Rather than speaking out against abortion as the unjust killing of an innocent human life, he has capitulated to the culture. In many ways, his argument is utterly indistinguishable from the pro-choice position. Trump wants to reduce this to a matter for the States, but murder is a federal crime. If we truly believe that abortion is murder, than we should not allow for this kind of rhetoric. Children are being slaughtered every day in the west and we must put an end to it. We must fight for equal protection for our unborn neighbors. The red states are not enough. Do not compromise on this issue and continue to fight for the unborn until abortion is ended and the coastlands wait for His Law in the area of human dignity.