A popular evangelical Christian writer posted a controversial blog on Tuesday arguing that pro-lifers should vote for pro-abortion Hillary Clinton.
Author and blogger Rachel Held Evans calls herself pro-life. She says she has never publicly endorsed a presidential candidate – until now. Evans changed that when she endorsed Clinton on Tuesday.
In a lengthy blog post, Evans made several arguments for her case. In a nutshell, she claimed that Clinton’s social policies on childcare, healthcare, poverty and contraception will reduce abortion rates more than pro-life legislators ever will.
While I’ve written in the past about feeling caught between the pro-life and pro-choice camps, I’ve never used my platform to endorse a presidential candidate. But as so many others have said, this year is different. Knowing many of my pro-life friends feel torn between voting for an unpopular but highly qualified pro-choice candidate in Hillary Clinton and an incompetent narcissist who poses a unique threat to our American democracy in Donald Trump, I’d like to make a proposal:
You should vote for Hillary Clinton.
She continued:
In the eight years since we’ve had a pro-choice president, the abortion rate in the U.S. has dropped to its lowest since 1973. I believe the best way to keep this trend going is not to simply make it harder for women to terminate unwanted pregnancies but to create a culture with fewer unwanted pregnancies to begin with.
… So even though I think abortion is morally wrong in most cases, and support more legal restrictions around it, I often vote for pro-choice candidates when I think their policies will do the most to address the health and economic concerns that drive women to get abortions in the first place.
Evans has every right to her opinion and her vote, but her blog leaves out some key facts about Clinton’s radical pro-abortion policies.
Pro-lifers do agree with Evans on one point. Economic factors heavily influence women considering abortion. Like Evans, pro-lifers believe there needs to be more support for pregnant and parenting women and their families. Through pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies and other programs, pro-lifers are working to provide that support. More needs to be done, but pro-lifers already are doing a lot to help families – while getting attacked by Clinton-endorsed groups.
What Evans fails to mention is that one of Clinton’s key promises to Planned Parenthood would push more women toward abortion. Clinton wants to overturn the Hyde Amendment and force taxpayers to fund abortions.
Hyde Amendment is a widely-supported measure that prohibits direct taxpayer funding of most abortions and has done so since the late 1970s. Upheld by the Supreme Court, the amendment is now a target of abortion advocates who have moved from pro-choice to pro-abortion — forcing Americans not only to accept unlimited abortions before birth but also to pay for them.
Along with Clinton’s promise, the new Democratic Party platform also calls for taxpayer funding for abortions and an end to Hyde and the Helms Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding of abortion in foreign aid.
A new Marist poll shows that more than two-thirds of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, including a majority of women and people who identify as pro-choice. Americans understand that their tax dollars would be better spent on helping women and their families, not pushing them toward aborting their unborn babies.
Even pro-life Democrats, who, like Evans, want more government-based support programs for moms and children, are saying they cannot vote for Clinton because she is too extreme. Clinton has called abortion on demand a “fundamental human right” and defended late-term partial-birth abortions.
Clinton’s policies would not reduce abortions, as Evans claims. She and her party no longer want to reduce abortions or even view abortions as tragic or difficult decisions. Clinton no longer says abortion should be “rare.”
Sadly, Evans appears to have bought into the abortion industry’s arguments hook, line and sinker. If she spent time researching Clinton’s statements and pro-life research and arguments, she would see that Clinton is not an option for pro-life voters.
