Answer to a pro-life 'Never Trump' friend

By Dennis M. Howard

Dear Dennis:

I'm sorry to tell you that between the two awful candidates running for president this year my choice as the lesser of two evils is Hillary Clinton. I could never vote for Donald Trump.

This election has divided people, families, friends right down the middle. I don't even like to go on Facebook anymore to see that "friends of mine" are promoting Trump. It's is literally making me sick and I am reaching the point that I can't even relate to anyone who would want to see a man like that running our country. I have voted Republican for years, but not this time.

With regard to the abortion issue, I still remain thoroughly pro-life. But why blame the politicians? Once abortion became "legal" in this country, it's unlikely to ever go back to being illegal. Those of us who are pro-life have got to shift the paradigm. We need to reach women's hearts and souls so that abortion will never be their go-to option.

I just can't understand calling Hillary Clinton a "murderer" when it is the child's own mother who does this to her innocent, unborn child. Law or no law, they are going to get rid of that baby. That's why I have come to the conclusion that laws pretty much don't matter.

Anonymous

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Dear "Pro-life Never Trump Friend:"

Trump was certainly not my first choice for a nominee, perhaps even my last. I had other preferences, but sadly they failed to make it. Even now, I'd vastly prefer Mike Pence to Trump, but sadly politics is a power game and Trump won that game fair and square.

It is also the art of the possible, not the ideal. And so we are faced with making relative choices between greater goods and lesser evils.

I've followed the Clintons very carefully since the 1992 primary in New York where I observed them firsthand. That year they used the same dirty tactics and the same cabal with the NY Times and the media to defeat Jerry Brown that they are using today. Their modus operandi hasn't changed.

I also saw how they treated pro-life Governor Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. Even after the primary, they sent their goons to break up his effort to speak his piece at Cooper Union in New York. Everything that has come out about them since confirms my opinion – and it is just that, a carefully considered opinion – that they are genuinely evil people, and that if Hillary wins, our country will be in dire peril.

I didn't arrive at that conclusion easily. Mind you, I was a lifelong Democrat until 1992. If I could find any redeeming qualities, any reason to trust these people, I would certainly give them the benefit of the doubt. But In fact, I mark 1992 as part of my own conversion.

As for Trump, he is no doubt a flawed human being who came to Manhattan in 1970. I remember that scene very well. I had worked on Madison Avenue during the '60's and '70's, when feminism and the sexual revolution were in full swing. But I was delighted to get out of there in 1972, when my daughter was born and we moved to New Jersey.

However, unlike the Clintons, I do see signs of repentance in Donald Trump, including his stellar choice of Mike Pence as his VP, and of Kellyanne Conway as his campaign manager. She speaks eloquently of her pro-life position, as does Pence. And Trump has made a serious, public commitment to change what is happening in Washington and especially the Supreme Court. Whoever is named to the Court over the next 4-8 years will almost certainly determine whether America can begin a process of healing or continue going to hell in a handbasket.

Unfortunately, we have had flawed leaders all through history from King David all the way to JFK. I rather think that Trump may well be the David we need at this time, someone willing to take on the evil establishment that has corrupted our country so tragically. If we expected our David to be simon pure, I'm afraid we'd wait a very long time. This is not the Second Coming.

But those are my considered opinions, and I certainly respect yours.

Where we differ is in your answer to your question: "Why blame the politicians?" Or the judges. Or the people in my own profession of journalism who have violated their ethics and given us lies instead of truth. If we all descend to that level, the country will have fallen to depths our Founding Fathers never contemplated.

Yes, I blame all of these so-called "leaders," starting with the callow politicians for whom holding onto power is their only touchstone. Ditto for the Judges who have sold the people down the river to maintain their social position in the Washington dinner party circuit.

We forget that the law is a great teacher, although we saw it clearly in our seminars for teens in all the confused kids who thought that although abortion was wrong, it still should be legal. Sadly they have bought into the misguided compassion that sets morality aside whenever anyone comes along with a sad story to tell.

But I don't blame them for that. I blame their teachers, starting with the pastors who fail to compassionately instruct their candidates for Confirmation about the perils that face them as they move into young adulthood and on to college and the temptations that will inevitably confront them there.

And yes, I blame the judges who pander rather than defend the principles on which this country was founded. And on and on to the politicians and the journalists who sell their integrity for money and power. We laugh at billionaire Trump, who made his fortune in the rough and tumble world of real estate, but we hail the Clintons who have become millionaires many times over by trading on the public trust. That double standard makes me ill.

We do agree that "we need to reach women's hearts and souls so that abortion will never be a choice they would ever make." I would expand that to include all the men involved as well. But I would escalate that to include all the people in positions of power or influence who have a responsibility for souls or for the people they claim to serve – including bishops, pastors, pro-life leaders, teachers, parents, politicians.

After 21 years at this, I know how deaf many of our leaders are to their responsibilities. I've done what I can, but if Hillary is elected, I fully expect to be censored, if not actively persecuted for my publicly stated pro-life views. With Trump and Pence, at least I can still have some hope of making a difference.

My friend, I am 86. I know very well that my time on this earth is limited. I suppose for that reason I do contemplate where I will stand on that final day of judgement, facing the billions of innocents who were never allowed to take their first breath. For they will be there.

And somebody is going to have to pay for stealing from them the greatest gift that God had in store for them, the gift of life. I just don't want to be one of them.

Thanks for your honesty. I offer you mine in return.

Dennis Howard

© Dennis M. Howard