The president isn’t pro-life, just pro-mandatory birth

As an extremely flawed lifelong Christian, I’ve heard people rightfully call out the hypocrisy of those who practice my faith. The Bible says the most important commandment is “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” but given rhetoric, you’d think it was “bring all embryos to term.” Many Christians currently are justifying re-electing a false prophet for president because they claim he is protecting “innocent babies.”

The myth is that being pro-mandatory birth is the same as pro-life. Forcing birth then taking a “market-based” approach to supporting those who are born primarily with harsh judgment and sporadic “charity” is the antithesis of loving thy neighbor and Christ’s teachings, and it is no better than initiating abortion at the 4th trimester.

I’m always intrigued by the political phrase “support abortion” as if people have abortion showers and abortion reveal parties. SisterSong’s concept of reproductive justice, which allows a woman “autonomy over her body, to have or not have children, and to parent those children in safe and sustainable communities,” is holistic. It’s closer to Christ than simply hijacking pregnant women’s uteruses only to bail once the child is born using a “personal responsibility” talking point attempting to punish her for “getting pregnant” under the label “pro-life.”

Being pro-life doesn’t rip away healthcare from the sick amongst us with pre-existing conditions during a pandemic that has killed over 180,000 people in 6 months, while responding to the deaths with: It is. What. It is.

Being pro-life does not strip healthcare protections of LGBTQ individuals who often suffer greater mental health and substance use challenges, often rooted in shame from the church.

Being pro-life doesn’t defund Planned Parenthood, which actually fills in gaps for Black maternal health in ways our non-Medicaid expanding state does not.

Being pro-life doesn’t dismantle Housing and Urban Development and use coded racism to undermine affordable housing development in a country where people, including children, live in tents and cars.

Being pro-life doesn’t support killing the climate and providing inadequate funding for education while funneling money into incarceration and bloated military budgets.

Being pro-life doesn’t terrorize immigrants by separating breastfeeding children from mothers who are seeking asylum from countries where you later take mission trips.

Being pro-life doesn’t facilitate drying mothers’ milk, childhood trauma, and attachment issues.

Being pro-life doesn’t increase risk for essential workers in grocery stores, factories, nursing homes and custodial jobs by not taking COVID-19 seriously and undermining masks, while also not supporting living wages and healthcare for workers.

Being pro-life doesn’t abuse working and middle-class Black, white, and brown people by protecting large corporations economically while offering next to no support for laborers or small business owners in the pandemic.

Being pro-life doesn’t encourage police brutality, while ignoring that violence against police is not done by BLM, but by far-right white led groups.

Being pro-life doesn’t hijack the Black Lives Matter movement around centuries long police violence against Black people — police were originally designed as slave patrols — to pretend to care about Black embryos.

Being pro-life doesn’t compare unjust police killings of Black people to missing a golf putt nor parrot Pontius Pilate talking points, “if he just complied, he’d still be alive.”

Be clear, the faith leading support for the president is faith in tax cuts and/or whiteness, not Jesus, a brown-skinned, wooly haired Jewish immigrant advocating for the poor whom the president would have caged and separated from Mary and Joseph. This same faith allowed good white Christians to justify spreading slavery. Jesus said, “forgive them Lord for they know not what they do.” After four years, you and we both know what you’re doing. The question is: Will you stop yourself in two months?

This story was originally published September 6, 2020 at 12:00 AM.