Am I the only one deeply disappointed with Ted Cruz’s criticism of Donald J. Trump for saying that women who get abortions should be punished if abortion is made illegal?
Wednesday, March 30th of 2016, Donald Trump went further than I’ve ever heard a political candidate go in speaking against abortion when he said that he would be in favor of “some form of punishment” for women who get abortions if abortion is made illegal.
The backlash against the still-front-running Trump was swift and severe with everyone on the Left and most if not all on the Right immediately criticizing and condemning his supposedly brash remarks. How could anyone say something so foolish? Surely this must be the final straw in proving that Donald Trump is an arrogant sexist who hates women!
No, not quite. Not so fast. Let me stop you right there.
What are you really about, “Pro-Life” people?
While the response to Trump’s remarks was to be expected from the Pro-Infanticide Democrats, I was not prepared for Senator Ted Cruz to join in decrying Trump’s remarks as further proof that he’s not a serious candidate.
“Once again, Donald Trump has demonstrated that he hasn’t seriously thought through the issues, and he’ll say anything just to get attention… Of course we shouldn’t be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world.”
– Senator Ted Cruz
But abortion is either murder or it isn’t, Senator Cruz. Either the unborn baby is a person or isn’t.
Suppose the mother of a 5-year-old child was convicted of her child’s murder. Wouldn’t we demand that mother be punished for so heinous a crime as to murder her own son or daughter, completely vulnerable and dependent on her for everything? Of course we would, as we ought. And that would not make us monstrous. Rather, that would make us just. In fact, what would make us truly unjust would be treating the murderous mother as the real victim, and glossing over her crime as some sort of cry for help.
Just so, if we’re going to say that the unborn baby is a person with equal value and worth in God’s eyes to my 5-year-old son, then the penalties for deliberately killing one should be as stiff as the penalties for murdering the other.
You can’t have it both ways, Pro-Lifers. And rather than eternally begging for table-scraps in the abortion debate – trying to tighten restrictions a little bit here, adding burdensome regulations there – why on Earth would you not get down to the heart of the matter and fight this for what it really is? This is no time for cowardice or pandering. It’s time to call a spade and a spade and abolish human abortion once and for all.
The abortion question must be a litmus test for political candidates.
I honestly can’t decide which is more frustrating in this situation: Trump back-pedaling when he faced a sudden backlash from the Left and the Right, or Cruz trying to find fault with Trump saying that women who get abortions should be punished.
My endorsement of Senator Ted Cruz for President has always rested on a very simple hope: that he is as he presents himself, a man of character and principle who stands up for what is morally right and what is permitted under the United States Constitution, regardless the odds or how many oppose.
But where that hope would have led me to expect Ted Cruz to understand the fundamental reality of abortion and support Trump’s initial remarks here as reasonable and fair, Senator Cruz has instead cynically seized on the opportunity to flatter the public and tell it what it wants to hear so as to gain leverage over his competitor in their race for the office of President. Either Cruz disagrees that abortion is actually murder and has no basis for saying he’s Pro-Life except to curry favor with genuine opponents of abortion, or else he quietly agrees with Trump but is deceptively acting like he doesn’t. Neither explanation is in-keeping with the man Cruz presented himself to be, the man of character and principle I thought I was supporting.
Cruz’s criticism of Trump in this particular case is counterproductive with people like me. My endorsement could flip very quickly from Cruz to Trump over this question alone if Trump could only be trusted to make good to the best of his ability on the commitment to do justice in the abortion debate, especially if Cruz is going to now vacillate. Putting an end to the murder of 3,000 babies a day in America earns a lot of grace in Garrett’s book, and Donald Trump’s other hijinks could gladly be forgotten and forgiven by me if he would but do this one thing as President.
As for Senator Ted Cruz, I honestly thought better of you, sir. Perhaps I was mistaken to. Where you stand in the abortion debate is absolutely a litmus test, and I’m now concerned whether you really pass that test.
Women who get abortions should be punished.
Opposition to women being prevented from or punished for getting abortions rests on the claim that it’s only that woman’s business what she does with her own body. And yet the myth of it being a woman’s right to choose what she does with her body is just that in the abortion debate: a myth.
Abortion is not a woman choosing what to do with her own body. Rather, she is choosing what to do or have done with her child’s body, and she is not innocent of the blood of her murdered child when she chooses to get an abortion.
Yes, as Christians we believe God’s grace can still wash away the guilt and sin of murder, even the murder of one’s own child. Yes, we’re all sinners in need of grace. But “…what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
It’s entirely too convenient to oppose Trump’s initial remarks on this issue on the grounds that he is, once again, not being very nice or loving to talk about punishment the way he is here. And yet punishing the wrongdoer is one of the two primary duties of government, according to Romans 13:3-4
“Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”
And what is the alternative? That we make abortion illegal because it is murder, yet look the other way if 3,000 mothers a day continue on murdering their children in the womb? That we only punish the medical professionals performing the abortions when it is the mother who must first ask them to? That would be akin to only punishing the assassin and not the one who sent him, or saying that the one who hires the hit-man is as much or more a victim as the one the hit is called on.
It makes no sense to say that unborn children are people and that killing them is murder, but to disagree that women who get abortions should be punished.
Abortion should be made illegal just like every other kind of murder is illegal. And yes, women who get abortions should be punished just like every other kind of murderer is punished. May God have mercy on their souls and ours too if we affirm the murderer as the real victim and look the other way as they continue taking innocent lives unjustly.
