Former Vice President Mike Pence, a conservative Christian, was also critical of Trump and told the National Review this week, “The Trump-Pence administration stood for life without apology for four years. The former President’s use of the language of the Left, pledging that his administration would be ‘great for women and their reproductive rights’ should be concerning for millions of pro-life Americans.”
But despite the criticism, some of Trump’s longtime religious supporters continue to rally around him. The Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham who has called abortion “a genocide of the unborn,” insisted Trump’s past actions were more important than his campaign rhetoric.
“I don’t just consider a candidate’s words, I look at their actions and what they have done,” Graham told RNS in a statement. “Former President Donald Trump has a four-year track record of appointing judges who protect life. While his position on abortion may not be as absolute as some would hope, it doesn’t change the fact that he has been the most pro-life president in my lifetime and is the only pro-life presidential candidate on the ballot this election.”
Ralph Reed, who has spent decades organizing evangelicals as head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said he does not see evangelicals abandoning Trump because of his abortion stances. Saying he was “never concerned” that Trump would support the ballot initiative in Florida, Reed suggested conservative voters will back Trump because the alternative — voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee — is simply untenable.
He contrasted Trump’s record on the issue with that of Harris, whose campaign has placed her support for abortion rights front and center. Harris has tied abortion access to personal freedom — the campaign’s slogan — as has her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has sung the praises of IVF on the stump while connecting it to his own family’s fertility struggles (though they had not, he had to clarify, turned to IVF but rather used a less invasive procedure).
Citing Harris’ support for policies such as legislation that would restore abortion access nationwide, Reed called her “the most radical pro-abortion nominee for president in the modern political era.” Her positions, he argued, are so “extreme” that she is ultimately “unacceptable to voters of faith.”
“For all these reasons, evangelicals will turn out in record numbers in November and vote overwhelmingly for Trump,” Reed predicted.
This article originally appeared here.
