Many longtime Kossacks know that I spent a good part of the turn of the millennium as a pro-life liberal—albeit a reluctant one. I was never really comfortable as a pro-lifer, in part because I’m almost a libertarian on civil liberty matters. By 2011, though, a spate of horribly invasive laws made it impossible for me to identify even as a non-traditional pro-lifer. It took supposedly mainstream pro-lifers’ almost Orwellian willingness to desecrate a corpse in the name of preserving life to push me all the way back to the pro-choice side.
So when the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade—a move we knew was potentially coming since this spring—I couldn’t help but wonder if I would be joining a number of my pro-life friends in celebrating. The more I think about it, I don’t think I could have done so. Not when we only got to this point because of three justices appointed by Donald Trump, the most unfit and unqualified president in this country’s history. While most of us knew this was true, any doubt that Trump was manifestly unfit and unqualified should have been put to rest with what has been unearthed in the last month by the Jan. 6 Committee. And that is why, even if I were still pro-life—or rather, forced-birth—I could not in good conscience celebrate the end of Roe.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, the main reason the religious right made what can only be described as a Faustian deal with Trump was that he promised to appoint judges who would oppose abortion and marriage equality. That was the main reason just about everyone that passes for leadership in that movement rallied to Trump’s standard after the Access Hollywood tapes came out. So what if Trump had been caught on tape reveling in degrading women? As the religious right told us time and again, it didn’t matter as much as the prospect of a president who would appoint judges of their liking.
So when Roe was formally overturned, a number of religious right luminaries crowed that for all of his depravities, this decision made Trump worth it. For instance, back in May—soon after the decision overturning Roe was leaked—CNN contributor, Republican strategist, and religious right activist Alice Stewart crowed that Roe was “our reward” for backing Trump despite his many depravities. When I diaried about this at the time, I noted that Stewart’s claim was problematic not just because of what she said, but when she said it. By then, it was already apparent that you could draw a straight line from the Big Lie to the insurrection. Is gutting abortion rights so important that we must excuse a ham-handed attack on democracy? Not just no, but hell no!
What we’ve learned in the last month has only solidified my view that there is no way I would be celebrating the end of Roe even if I were still a nontraditional pro-lifer. We now know that Trump was very much aware that many of the people at the Save America rally were armed—and still wanted the magnetometers removed. We now know that Trump drafted a tweet directly calling for his supporters to march on the Capitol. That tweet was never sent—presumably to maintain plausible deniability. But the fact it ended up in the National Archives proves that gambit didn’t work.
We now know that ahead of his now-infamous speech in the Rose Garden on Jan. 6, Trump was handed a simple script telling the hordes to go home—and instead kept pouring gasoline on the fire. We also know that in a speech the following day, Trump could not bring himself to say that the election was over.
And yet, according to some pro-lifers, we should still celebrate that the justices appointed by this criminal, this traitor, are responsible for overturning Roe. Supposedly, it’s such an atrocity that its end ought to be celebrated regardless. By that logic, should we rejoice when manifestly guilty people are convicted—only to find out prosecutors shredded the Constitution to get those convictions, like in Danziger Bridge? And should we have been okay with the FBI crawling into bed with Whitey Bulger in order to take down the Boston Mafia?
This is no different. There are many reasons why nothing Trump did was worth it. But even if you overlook everything else because of the end of Roe, you cannot overlook that Trump is guilty of, in the words of Rep. Liz Cheney, betraying his office and his oath in a way that no president has done, ever. If we have to overlook that because abortion is now illegal in much of the country, it’s more proof that I didn’t leave the pro-life movement. It left me—and frankly, I’m not sure if I was ever part of it. And it’s more evidence what passes for mainstream in this movement is really forced-birth.