The image above at a Mississippi abortion clinic is a familiar scene outside of abortion clinics across the nation. Self-styled pro-lifers scream at women seeking abortions, cry for the “babies” who die in abortion clinics, and plead with women not to abort their babies.
And now, they do so as hundreds of living, breathing, suffering children scream for their parents—parents whom the Trump administration has deliberately separated from them in an attempt to incite terror. The horror unfolding at the border has brought into stark contrast the faux piety of abortion protesters set against the backdrop of “pro-life” people who support brutalizing children.
Republicans: Pro-Life, Except for the Living
28% of Republicans think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, including when the pregnancy will kill the mother or is the result of rape. 52% would support postponing the next election if Trump wanted them to. And a stunning 55% support separating children from their parents at the border.
I don’t have data proving it, but I’m certain that the Venn diagram of these three groups shows massive overlap. Republicanism is no longer a political ideology. Pro-lifers can no longer reasonably claim that they care about babies. Their opposition to abortion has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with the fact that abortion can save women’s lives.
It’s all devolved into a singular ideology of hate. Facebook comments by Republican supporters of this policy reveal exactly how pro-life they are. Read a few news articles and you’ll see “pro-lifers” advocating harvesting these children’s organs and smashing their fingers. Support for Trump is not about disenfranchisement or stupidity. It’s about hatred. This small, powerful, hateful minority will do anything their leader suggests. And many of them are protesting outside of abortion clinics right now.
A Long History of Stealing Other People’s Children
It might seem strange to connect abortion and border separations—except, of course, for the fact that people who claim to care about children have not lifted a finger to help children at the border. Yet conservatives have a long history of viewing other people’s children as a possession to which they have a right.
Laura Ingraham raised eyebrows when she suggested that Americans should adopt migrant children held in detention camps. Never mind the fact that these children already have parents, and are pleading for them day and night.
This is not new. A rabid evangelical adoption movement argues that children don’t belong with their parents, and that parents don’t deserve resources to make childrearing easier. Children belong with “better” parents—right-wing conservatives. Evangelicals want to make it easier to take kids from their parents, and if they can’t do that, they want to force women to give birth to children they don’t want.
That’s, in large part, what the right-wing opposition to abortion is really about. There are far fewer adoptable American children than conservative parents who want to adopt, so evangelicals are looking to other options. Some go to other nations, where adoption is often indistinct from kidnapping. Now, they seem bound and determined to kidnap immigrant children in the U.S.
This is Who We Are: Brutalizing Families, Claiming to be Pro-Life
For every person claiming that border separations “aren’t who we are,” there’s at least one pointing out that this has always been who “we” are. From selling infants from plantations to permanently separating Japanese-American children from their parents, this sort of terrorism has a long and rich history in the United States. Well into the 1970s, women were forced to give babies up for adoption.
And it’s not just Republicans or Conservatives who have participated. In each generation, most people have sat idly by and watched screaming children be separate from their parents. This is who we are, and who we have always been, but it doesn’t have to be.
It’s time to stop letting the same people who separate sobbing children from their parents claim any kind of moral high ground. They have none. Their views aren’t a reasonable form of disagreement. It is not possible to be a decent person and support the Trump administration.
It’s Time to Shun Those Who Support Border Separations
Numerous analysts have explained why Trump’s executive order isn’t enough, and may even make things worse. It doesn’t reunite families. Instead, it allows the indefinite detention of children and their families, and makes border crossings a felony. The border separations might even have been a temporary distraction to empower the administration to do what it wanted to do all along: indefinitely hold immigrants in brutal jail conditions. So despite Republican attempts to eschew blame, to shift attention, and to paint Trump as a hero, this is far from over. Don’t get distracted.
This is the defining moral issue of our time. It’s not enough to get angry. First, educate yourself. Here’s a simple, interesting post that dispels numerous myths about border separations. Slate has an excellent, comprehensive guide offering options from calling your senator to volunteering to help children.
Here’s something else you can do: don’t allow this to become just one more trivial political divide. That’s what the advocates of child torture want. They’re already bragging about how they won’t unfriend loved ones over political differences, how they believe in tolerance, how they embrace difference. They’re trying to set the moral tone of the debate by forcing liberals to be the bad guy.
Don’t take the bait. Did your grandparents brag about being friends with Nazis? Do you know anyone who’s proud of not letting a “difference of opinion” over Jim Crow segregation or slavery divide them?
Those who support border separations have made it clear that they’re part of the small segment of society that will support any sort of abuse their Republican overlords tell them to. They’ll force a rape victim to die from her pregnancy. They’ll cancel democracy and postpone an election. They’ll torture a child for their parent’s misdemeanor committed in desperation.
They cannot be part of your moral community. They lack compassion and conscience. They do not care to learn the facts. Just as the slave owners and Jim Crow supporters of a bygone era were unwilling to change their minds, so too are the supporters of Trump’s border atrocities. Don’t waste energy you could spend doing something useful on arguing with these monsters.
Do not welcome them into your home.
Don’t talk to them.
Don’t patronize their businesses.
Don’t be friendly or understanding or sympathetic to them.
Don’t listen to them.
Don’t allow them contact with your children.
Our moral choices must have consequences. Child torture is not a political stance. Don’t allow this to be one more thing Trump and his ilk normalize. Make supporters of child torture choose child torture over their family, their friends, their personal reputation. Make them stand for what and who they really are. Make them stand alone.