Meet the anti-abortion Republicans defecting from Trump and voting Biden this year
“What’s so pro-life about forced hysterectomies?” It’s an obvious followup question after the revelation that the Department of Homeland Security under Donald Trump forced unwanted reproductive medical procedures on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detainees. And with some rank-and-file anti-abortion workers resigning rather than stomach supporting Trump, it lays open the question of whether the movement, even with its judicial success and the possibility of one more appointment to the supreme court, can survive the damage Trump has inflicted.
During the last election, the desire to overturn Roe v Wade had some holding their noses and voting for Trump. Four years later, the problems of standing with such a deeply immoral president, a string of horrific policy actions and a small but significant change in the voting patterns of religious conservatives all may be combining to hasten the diminishment of the movement even as it reaches a coveted milestone.
Christianity Today recently reported that the executive director for Ohio Right to Life resigned rather than support Trump in 2020. According to Stephanie Ranade Krider: “Nothing about his words or actions are kind or gentle or faithful or full of self-control.” I understand her sentiment. As someone activated into the “pro-life” movement while a student at Liberty University in the 1980s, I believed our work should affirm the value of each human being made in the image of God. Trump’s foul-mouthed debasement of his opponents is in stark contrast to that value.
The lifeblood of any movement is deeply committed followers. It is difficult to motivate volunteers without even pretending to affirm the core values of compassion and love for all life. As a Republican campaign operative in the 1980s and 90s, I experienced the importance a shared sense of values and a common struggle played in uniting anti-abortioners to work for an emerging conservative majority in the Virginia legislature. It’s unfathomable to imagine uniting those same faithful door walkers and envelope stuffers toward working for a president who locks kids in cages or forces sterilization on detained immigrants.
It should come as no surprise that a small but significant number of conservative evangelical and Catholic voters have made the decision to shift their vote to Joe Biden and the Democratic party. As Vote Common Good reported in a swing state poll released last week, evangelicals and Catholics are on track to swing toward Biden an average of 11% in five key states. While that may be seen as a small number compared to the hold the Republican party and the anti-abortion movement has had on these voters, it should be seen as the continuation of a trend, especially among younger voters.
In 2008, I spent more than 200 hours interviewing young evangelicals who were leaving the organized evangelical church behind. The primary reason was the disconnect they felt between their faith, the teaching of scripture and the political actions of the religious right. According to one young evangelical I interviewed: “We couldn’t understand – where did people like the Moral Majority come from and why aren’t they focused on the issues Jesus cared about?”
Some may argue that younger evangelicals are still as anti-abortion as their parents, and that has some statistical backing. But they are also less likely to fall in line with religious leaders and their political projects. That may be an ironic byproduct of the desire for credibility within the evangelical academy. Beginning in the 1990s, schools like Liberty, Wheaton and Biola implemented a more rigorous plan of academics in biblical education and church history. Armed with that increased knowledge, younger evangelicals reject the biblical and historical shortsightedness the religious right brings to the culture wars. They find they cannot ignore the preponderance of scripture that demands justice for workers, people of all races and even migrant children at the border.
Younger evangelicals were supposed to be the next generation of anti-abortion and conservative leaders. But many I spoke to are forming neomonastic communities to serve among and care for the poor. Others are fueling movements toward social justice, care for creation and racial healing. So, even if Trump is able to put an anti-abortion replacement on the supreme court it may prove to be a pyrrhic victory. Overturning Roe will not make abortion illegal, but rather shift the fight back to the individual states. With younger evangelicals engaging with Black Lives Matter, the fight for climate action and prison reform, it seems unlikely they will take up the mantle of the state by state anti-abortion fight, especially when it has become so caustically linked to Donald Trump and the abuses against life and decency during his time in office.
We need to foster ways for faithful evangelicals to act faithfully, to reclaim the moral narrative and provide space to advocate for the election of leaders who reflect a full set of Christian values that will help our nation heal. This is why I am lending my voice to the New Moral Majority and participating in actions to reclaim our sacred story. In the past few weeks, frustrated by the reality that children are still being separated from their families and placed into detention, over 450 faith leaders called upon Trump to change course. To learn now that mothers of the separated children have been forced to have hysterectomies is news that sends shockwaves through communities of faith. It’s the type of government intervention in the family planning process that is not only fundamentally immoral, but against every freedom we claim to protect for all those made in the image of God.
I once asked a younger evangelical who grew up in a Republican and antiabortion household why he has chosen a life of service among the urban poor. He said: “They blew it, man. Our parents and their generation. They cared more about power than people. We needed to do something new.” Indeed.