Pro-Life Evangelicals Better Off With Hillary Clinton, Christian Writer Rachel Held Evans Says
Pro-life evangelicals are better off voting for the Planned Parenthood-endorsed Hillary Clinton than voting for real estate mogul Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, prominent Christian author Rachel Held Evans suggests.
Evans, a progressive Christian columnist and author of books such as Faith Unraveled and A Year of Biblical Womanhood, who claims to be pro-life and proclaimed in 2014 that she was no longer fighting for a seat at the "evangelical table," took to her website on Tuesday to argue that Christians, even pro-life believers, would be doing themselves and their cause a disservice by voting for Trump over Clinton.
Despite the facts that Trump vows to appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices and Clinton opposes abortion limits up until the very end of the third trimester, Evans contends that Clinton's policies will help keep abortion rates at record lows, while Trump's policies will only help raise the abortion rate.
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"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," Evans wrote. "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."
Mallory Quigley, communications director for the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, contests Evan's insinuation that the Obama administration's policies are the cause for the decline in abortion rate.
"There are a multitude of reasons for abortion being on the decline," Quigley told The Christian Post in an email. "As was noted by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Students for Life, and CitizenLink in their amicus brief to the Supreme Court earlier this year, the general public is growing increasingly pro-life and women are more willing to carry unexpected pregnancies to term. This has nothing to do with the pro-abortion policies of the Obama Administration but rather the fact that young people have grown up in the age of ultrasound."
Although many view the Republican Party as more pro-life than the Democratic Party, Evans argues that neither party can really claim to stand for a "consistent pro-life ethic." She goes on to claim that progressive policies actually make it easier for young and impoverished mothers to choose not to abort to their children.
"Data suggests progressive social policies that make healthcare and childcare more affordable, make contraception more accessible, alleviate poverty, and support a living wage do the most to create such a culture, while countries where abortion is simply illegal see no change in the abortion rate," Evans writes. "By focusing exclusively on the legal components of abortion while simultaneously opposing these family-friendly social policies, the Republican Party has managed to hold pro-life voters hostage with the promise of outlawing abortion, (which has yet to happen under any Republican administrations since Roe v. Wade), while actively working against the very policies that would lead to a significant reduction in unwanted pregnancies."
Evans issues four main points.
First, she claims that "voting pro-choice is not the same as voting for abortion." Second, she states that "criminalizing abortion won't necessarily reduce abortions." Third, she asserts that pro-lifers should support government efforts to help low income families. Fourth, she contends that pro-lifers should support efforts to make contraception "accessible and affordable."
"Every child deserves to live in a home and in a culture that welcomes them and can meet their basic needs," Evans wrote. "Every mother deserves the chance to thrive. Forcing millions of women to have children they can't support, or driving them to Gosnell-style black market clinics, will not do."
Evans stressed that not only does Clinton have "better policy proposals to help improve the lives of women, children, and families than Donald Trump," the former First Lady doesn't plan to "rip hundreds of thousands of families apart" with a mass deportation plan, nor does she have "contempt" for "Latinos, Muslims, refugees and people with disabilities."
"Evangelicals, I implore you: Don't support Donald Trump. Don't support a racist demagogue who can't even quote a single Bible verse properly and who takes to Twitter to viciously insult everyone he disagrees with. He's playing you," Evans warned. "Donald Trump is not your pro-life savior. Of course, neither is Hillary Clinton."
"But Clinton is far better positioned to keep the abortion rate at the record low it saw under President Obama while the Republican Party works for the next four years to produce the kind of candidate the people of this country deserve," she continued.
