When Fox News asked Donald Trump to comment on his role in the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to overturn Roe v. Wade by upholding Dobbs v. Jackson, putting an end to the legislation that made murder a national constitutional right for nearly 50 years, former President Trump said, “God made the decision.” Amen. Thanks be to God. And thanks must also go to Donald Trump for this tremendous victory in the cause of the sanctity of human life.
Say what you will about Donald Trump and the wild term he served—where much good was done together with much cause for headshaking—it was all worth it if only just for this incredible result. God has answered decades of prayer and sacrifice and hard work by sending, as He often does, a very curious instrument to carry out His will. Thanks be to God, I say again, and—with all sincerity—to Donald J. Trump. He promised to appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court, and he kept his promise. In so doing, he accomplished, through opportunity and determination and prudence, what no Republican president was able to accomplish in half a century.
In 1970, Republican Richard Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun who penned the infamous Roe decision. Fellow Republican Gerald Ford appointed John Paul Stevens who ended up leading the liberal bloc in the bench. The Republican icon Ronald Reagan, who, like Trump, appointed three justices, has credit for Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy, but only Justice Scalia could be counted on for a consistent conservative opinion.
The Republican Bushes were also inconsistent. George H. W. Bush gave us Clarence Thomas, a great victory for the conservative wing to this day, but he also gave us David Souter, who proved a victory for the liberal wing. George W. Bush appointed Samuel Alito, a brilliant mind, but he also appointed John Roberts, who has swung his vote Left for many liberal rulings and even legislative decisions, such as Obamacare, DACA, Obergefell, and the bill to require hospitals to give admitting privileges to abortionists.
None of these presidents or their justices were able or prepared to affect a re-examination and overthrow of Roe v. Wade, especially given the vacillating quality of so-called conservative justices and the lack of a solid conservative majority.
And then came President Donald Trump. With Scalia’s death shortly before the election, Trump promised to give us a conservative justice, and he did in Neil Gorsuch, despite the outcry from the Left who struggled to have Obama appoint Merrick Garland as the last gasp of his presidency. With Kennedy’s retirement, Trump brought Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court amid a ridiculous barrage of protest from the Left. Finally, after the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Trump appointed Amy Coney Barrett.
With that, President Trump delivered what no GOP president has delivered in 50 years: a Supreme Court with a solid conservative bloc made up of conservative justices that have transformed the character of the Court. The overturning of what Justice Alito called “egregiously wrong,” namely Roe v. Wade (together with Planned Parenthood v. Casey) on June 24, 2022 is truly the glory of Trump’s SCOTUS appointments and perhaps even his presidency. The events that stand to follow could challenge the legal basis of other cases past regarding birth control and the homosexual agenda, and also help protect freedom of speech, religious liberty, and Second Amendment rights.
President Trump issued this celebratory statement after the ruling, in which he tells it as he sees it (as he always does):
Today’s decision, which is the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation, along with other decisions that have been announced recently, were only made possible because I delivered everything as promised, including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong Constitutionalists confirmed to the United States Supreme Court. It was my great honor to do so! I did not cave to the Radical Left Democrats, their partners in the Fake News Media, or the RINOs who are likewise the true, but silent, enemy of the people. These major Victories prove that even though the Radical Left is doing everything in their power to destroy our Country, your Rights are being protected, the Country is being defended, and there is still hope and time to Save America! I will never stop fighting for the great people of our Nation!
I was never a diehard “Trumper.” I voted for him in 2016 almost entirely for the sake of the late Justice Scalia’s empty seat on the Supreme Court. I acted as a “single-issue voter,” knowing that abortion would certainly be further enshrined under Hillary Clinton. I had my hesitancies about the reality-show mogul, but, when it came to abortion, Donald Trump was the pro-life candidate, even despite the pro-abortion stance he had taken for so many years of his life.
Hillary Clinton and the Democrats would, of course, make abortion more available on demand, but that self-aggrandizing attitude that Trump so often embodies and encourages, both in profession and personality, can give rise to the demand. The liberal Left certainly attacks the pro-life movement purposefully from the outside, but Donald Trump might attack it accidentally from the inside by following a success compass instead of a moral compass.
In other words, the kind of culture that Donald Trump seemed to fuel is the very culture where evils like abortion bourgeon: a worldly culture of power, money, and vanity. I’m not saying that Trump is an actual proponent of such a culture, but his ways and his words encouraged a brash arrogance in some that I always found bothersome or even dangerous.
But all that aside, let us give thanks where thanks are due.
President Trump was true to his word as a pro-life president—his appearance at the 2020 March for Life being a fitting addition to his record—and the downfall of Roe v. Wade is the ultimate demonstration of that. In fact, Trump predicted that this would happen during his third debate with Hillary Clinton, when she retorted with vigorous support for Roe v. Wade. Given the situations that presented themselves at the highest court in the land before the 2020 election, we can imagine what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had been elected, and if Donald Trump hadn’t fought as hard as he did to win the White House.
Donald Trump is clearly a man who is driven to win, and the real victory is on the side of life. A President who promises to win fighting for the American people must include in his or her scope the most vulnerable American people—especially when they are unthinkably labeled as disposable wholly by the will of their mother.
President Trump has given us justices that have made clear that abortion is not a constitutional right, neither is it about women’s health, and neither is it about reproductive freedom. “Abortion presents a profound moral issue,” Justice Alito wrote in his majority opinion, that must be judged by the consciences (and now the votes) of citizens who, we pray, will be guided by the Holy Spirit and see that human life begins at conception and any willful destruction of that life is nothing more than murder.
During his March for Life speech, President Trump said, “we know that every human soul is divine, and every human life—born and unborn—is made in the holy image of Almighty God.” Thanks to God and to Donald Trump, our pro-life president, many babies will be saved, and abortions will become more difficult to obtain, and perhaps even become illegal in many or most states. As Catholics prepare to get to work on new and narrower battlefields, we give thanks to God, and we say thank you to Donald Trump.
[Photo Credit: Getty Images]
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