Will Pro-Lifers Find Their Testicular Fortitude?

Erick-Woods Erickson

Sad. Pathetic. Shameless. Embarrassing.

There are just too many adjectives like those to describe the pro-life movement right now — a movement that seems to have embraced self-marginalization by deciding to be subservient to a political party instead of leading a righteous cause.

The Republican-controlled Senate of the United States is considering an abortion-on-demand-until-birth supporter to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services — a reckless crank and terrible human being who believes in abortion up until the moment of birth and who would control more of the discretionary federal budget than any other single person as well as stand in the presidential line of succession — and the pro-life movement is crapping its collect pants at the thought of even whispering opposition right now because they are afraid they might not get a scrap from the table, let alone a seat at the table and some people just don’t care anymore because Roe is done and high fructose corn syrup is the new enemy.

The Washington Pro-Life establishment has handed itself over to the ghost of Bob Michel, the Republican House Leader embarrassed by young Newt Gingrich’s willingness to fight even Republicans.

This is disgraceful.

If the pro-life movement is not bold enough to vocally oppose a pro-abortion Health and Human Services Secretary in a Republican Administration because people might say mean things about them, they’ll get nothing and be happy about it.

It turns out the Supreme Court did not just end Roe. It ended the pro-life movement’s willingness to fight Republicans in Washington for a righteous cause. God forbid you even score against the vote on your precious little scorecards.

This is shameful.

And, before you all email or text me, please spare me examples of the crumbs you’ve gotten as you cede leadership of HHS to the abortion movement led by a Democrat named Kennedy, whose personal behaviors drove his wife to suicide and whose publicly stated beliefs are antithetical to the pro-life movement. You’ll be putting a pro-abortion activist in the presidential line of succession, and you’ll like it.

Stop being pathetic. You people have internalized your marginalization and have, in the process, marginalized yourselves. Your collective internal monologue must be defective. If you can’t stop Kennedy, you are irrelevant to further advancing what you’ve fought for and will become another sclerotic movement dependent on the obliviousness of donors to prop up your offices and salaries while doing nothing meaningful to put points on the board. See e.g. the NRA.

It’s pitiful.

It’s better to fight and lose than accept self-inflicted marginalization. Be the leaders you claim to be instead of being led about by a heckler’s veto over you.

I love you guys. But you need some tough love right now. The last time y’all self-marginalized was when George H. W. Bush’s Gulf War era popularity was so high y’all decided you shouldn’t fight him on David Souter. We can’t risk doing that again.