Former Vice President Mike Pence in a Saturday opinion piece said he is "deeply disappointed" in former President Donald Trump's "retreat" from the pro-life cause, considering they worked together in the White House in the "most pro-life administration in American history."
"Like so many other advocates for life, I was deeply disappointed when Mr. Trump stated that he considered abortion to be a state-only issue and would not sign a bill prohibiting late-term abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, even if it came to his desk," Pence said his article for The New York Times.
The switch was "disheartening," said Pence, adding that Trump had been committed to the pro-life movement during and before his presidency.
"Who can forget the way candidate Donald Trump denounced late-term abortion during a debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016?" said Pence, noting that he highlighted "how she and other Democrats would allow doctors to 'rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.'"
Further, Trump, ahead of a Senate vote in 2018 on a 20-week national ban, said that he "strongly supported" efforts ending late-term abortions nationally, with exceptions for procedures done in cases of rape or incest or to protect the life of the mother, said Pence.
Trump now is not only "retreating" from his position, Pence said, but "he is leading other Republicans astray."
"One recent example is an Arizona Republican running for the U.S. Senate who followed Trump’s lead and pledged to oppose a federal ban on late-term abortions," he said. "When our leaders aren’t firmly committed to life, others will waver too. Courage inspires imitation. So does weakness."
Pence said he considers serving as vice president in the pro-life administration "one of the great honors of my life" and that he's proud that the Supreme Court justices that were confirmed "voted to send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history, ending a travesty of jurisprudence that led to the death of more than 63 million unborn Americans."
After that, nearly half of the states in the country enacted strong pro-life laws, said Pence, but because "some Democrats continue to support taxpayer-funded abortions up to the moment of birth in the rest of the country," he favors a national law restricting abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy to end late-term abortions.
"America today appears closer to communist China and North Korea than to the nations of Europe," he wrote. "By prohibiting late-term abortions after 15 weeks, America can move away from the radical fringe and squarely back into the mainstream of Western thought and jurisprudence."
The time has not come to surrender ground in the pro-life fight, Pence added.
"While the former president has sounded the retreat on life at the national level, I pray that he will rediscover the passion for life that defined our four years in office and rejoin the fight to end late-term abortions in America once and for all," said Pence. "The character of our nation and the lives of generations not yet born demand nothing less."
Earlier this month, Trump slammed his former vice president for criticizing his stance on abortion, commenting on his Truth Social page that "He never felt I would be able to kill Roe v Wade and bring it back to the States where, according to all legal scholars, it belongs."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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