By Suzanne Bowdey

The shock hasn’t worn off for pro-lifers, who continue to watch with dismay as Donald Trump and his Catholic running mate, Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), seem to publicly disavow years of conservative principles on the unborn. Reaction is still pouring inover the former president’s tweet that his administration would be “great” for “reproductive rights,” a euphemism for abortion that many see as a devastating surrender in itself. It would be one thing, the editors of National Review wrote, “for a Republican candidate for national office to say that a federal law against abortion is unattainable, or even undesirable,” given the current political realities. But at this point, they continue, “pro-lifers have to wonder if there’s any difference left between the parties on abortion.”

Of course, as veterans of the movement know, the warning signs loomed large well before July’s Republican National Convention, when Trump’s inside circle hinted that abortion would no longer be an issue of common concern but a political inconvenience that the former president would try to avoid at all costs. The ensuing party platform cemented those fears, shredding paragraphs of pro-life vision and values in exchange for four sentences that promised merely to “oppose Late Term Abortion” and support mothers.

Even that seems to be in doubt after Vance’s Sunday interview, in which he walked back any support for a 15-week federal threshold for abortion, which is past the point unborn babies can feel pain. Asked whether or not he would commit to not “impos[ing] a federal ban on abortion,” Vance replied, “I can absolutely commit that.” He continued, “I think it’s important to step back and say, ‘What has Donald Trump actually said on the abortion question, and how is it different from what Kamala Harris and the Democrats have said?’ Donald Trump wants to end this culture war over this particular topic.”

In what appears to be a big departure from Trump’s first term as president, Vance wouldn’t even commit to the 45th president’s former positions — which, until recently, were considered the bare minimum of bipartisan federal policy: blocking taxpayer-funded abortion at home and abroad, stopping the military’s war on the unborn, and ending the shipment of abortion pills to pro-life states.

It is terribly troubling the “new stance” of Trump on abortion. We all knew it was coming but still deeply concerned of a move away from Moral Conservative values. We always have to compromise. We are used to it, but still not happy about it. Rh