The U.S. presidential election is not a forum for the faint of heart. In what is arguably the most high-stakes political contest on the planet, those stakes appear increasingly high, especially when we consider the issues that the United States is at this moment embroiled in: immigration, climate change, social unrest and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic.

Given the many divisive issues currently shaking the United States, including its president, the abortion debate might not seem so obvious or pressing, though it is just as bitter. The 50 million lives lost to abortion since the infamous Roe v Wade decision in 1973 is a frightful statistic that, despite the current situation, ought to give us some pause for thought.

Amid such an atmosphere of confrontation and tangible tension, in which media attention is immense and every nuance of opinion, policy and preference is a liable source of bitter divide, the abortion debate is just as important, but equally just as divisive – as is the current president of the United States, of course.

For someone who seeks to rid the world of the blight of abortion, does it matter who wins the U.S. election this 3 November?

President Trump is in many, many ways an anomaly that seemed inconceivable four years ago, engendering both extreme loathing and ardent devotion on either side of the political divide, so much so that considered discussion about his actual merits, or lack of, appears too much to ask.

Undoubtedly, the pugilistic personality of the man, bombastic, unthinking and often uncouth, has contributed to the impression that has generally underscored this most troublesome of presidents. Nevertheless, sensible discourse requires that we steer clear of caricature. Men and women are flawed creatures. As fallen as we are, from time to time we might, given the chance do a good thing, transcend our flaws and achieve some manner of redemption.

Setting everything else we know about Trump aside, then, and focusing on the abortion debate in the United States, could it be that the president, the New York loudmouth, has done some good?

This week, Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s mooted pro-life nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, was confirmed and sworn in to one of the most powerful positions in the United States’ judicial system. And it may well prove an important moment for the anti-abortion cause.

Trump’s nomination of anti-abortion judges to the U.S. Supreme Court – three judges in four years now, the other two being Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – is significant, and shows that Trump, whatever else may be said of him, has done some good. His most recent nomination, Justice Barrett, in the wake of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has consequently raised the prospect of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, which all but legalised abortion across the United States in 1973.

The Court now has a 6-3 conservative and potentially pro-life majority; and Justice Barrett, a Catholic and, one hopes, a dependable pro-lifer, might just tip the balance in a deciding vote in the Supreme Court repealing the 1973 decision.

Moreover, Trump’s nomination of Justice Barrett, a mother of seven, is a powerful refutation of the harmful and profoundly insulting claim that women must rely on abortion as a means of advancing their career. I, for one, believe that the President’s choice of justice is brilliant, if only as an example of what a mother can achieve without the need for abortion.

In this sense, whether or not Justice Barrett’s confirmation will lead to the repeal of Roe vs Wade, her nomination marks the end of a period of four years in which Trump has represented the anti-abortion cause well at home and abroad.

Still, despite being president of the United States, Trump is restricted in terms of what he can do to preserve the lives of the unborn. Regarding the repeal of Roe vs Wade, he can only appoint justices who might at some point vote in favour of repeal. While we should not underestimate the importance of such judicial appointments, we should also look to his other actions as president for a fuller picture.

2020 has been a busy year for Trump. Of course, other events such as COVID-19, as well as his own bellicose personality, have unfortunately obscured the good he has done for the world’s unborn. For it has become increasingly clear that Trump takes abortion seriously, as his nomination of Justice Barrett has in part shown.

Earlier this year, indeed, Trump became the first sitting president to attend the March for Life rally in Washington DC. Here the President pledged to stand for and defend the “eternal truth” that “every child is a precious and sacred gift”, and that “together, we must protect, cherish, and defend the dignity and sanctity of every human life”.

In terms of actual policy, one of the Trump administration’s major weapons in the fight against abortion has been the withdrawal of funding from pro-abortion bodies at home and abroad.

In his first week of office, for instance, Trump reinstated and extended the Mexico City Policy – withdrawing U.S. aid from international NGOs that perform or promote abortion – an act that underlined his vow, stated clearly at the 74th UN General Assembly, that his presidency will “never tire of defending innocent life” around the world.

Of course, President Trump, as the leader of the United States, is in a powerful position, being able to really hurt international organisations that insist on defining access to abortion as “essential” healthcare.

At home, too, Trump, as part of his re-election campaign, has now pledged to fully defund Planned Parenthood, after already denying the pro-abortion giant millions of dollars in federal funding last year. “Forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions is an abhorrent position that must be defeated at the ballot box”, he said recently. “I urge every pro-life American to join this effort and do your part to defeat abortion extremism this November… We can score a major, historic victory for unborn children and their mothers.”

Such statements as these, backed up by decisive action, do lend legitimacy to the President’s claim to be “the most pro-life president” in U.S. history, a president who does, indeed, “fight in the trenches for unborn children and their mothers”.

Despite the good that Trump has done, as we can see, his flaws as a president and, indeed, as a man, have covered up these good deeds.

Still, might President Trump have achieved the rarest of things: to be made a better man by the presidency? In other words, has he done more good than have might have if he had simply remained Trump?

In 2011, Trump, who was previously pro-abortion, came out as pro-life at a time when he was seriously considering a run for the presidency, telling The Times: “I don’t think [abortion] can ever be negotiated. Let me put it this way: I am pro-life, and pro-life people will find out that I will be very loyal to them, just as I am loyal to other people. I would be appointing judges that feel the way I feel.”

Then, during a 2015 GOP debate with other Republican candidates, Trump explained how his position on abortion had “evolved”:

“What happened is friends of mine, years ago, were going to have a child, and it was going to be aborted. And it wasn’t aborted. And that child today is a total superstar, a great, great child. And I saw that. And I saw other instances.”

Trump may well have made these statements with an eye on the presidency, some might say, courting a potential Republican base in 2011 and 2015. Was it a cynical move? The answer to that question depends on which Trump you want to believe in. And in a sense, it doesn’t matter when we take into account the 50 million lives lost to abortion since 1973 – and especially when we see that his opponents in 2020 will only increase and enshrine this terrible statistic.

Joe Biden, Trump’s opponent at this year’s U.S. election, is undoubtedly pro-abortion and would seek to pass a federal law “codifying” abortion as a right, bypassing any potential ruling by the Supreme Court in the future. Biden would, of course, reinstate U.S. funding to the international abortion industry as well.

Biden’s vice-presidential pick, Senator Kamala Harris, is also enthusiastically in favour of securing and extending the right to abortion in the United States, as well as acting aggressively towards anti-abortion individuals. Harris, former Attorney General of California, has been accused of persecuting pro-lifers, such as the investigative journalist David Daleiden, for example, who in 2015 released videos showing officials at Planned Parenthood discussing the selling foetal tissue and organs harvested from aborted babies.

Moreover, Harris has a history of attempting to deny Catholics judicial appointments for their pro-life views, such as the appointment of Distract Judge Brian Buescher in 2018.

Also advocating for the codifying of Roe vs. Wade, Harris seeks to repeal the Hyde Amendment, a pro-life measure blocking federal Medicaid of abortion services, unless the mother’s life is in danger or if the baby is a result of incest or rape.

It is clear, then, that the difference between the two presidential candidates in terms of abortion policy could not be starker.

While it is entirely possible that the President adopted an anti-abortion position to increase, and accordingly appease, potential voters – Catholic and evangelical Christians, for the most part – does it really matter if, at the end of the day, he has acted on this position and done all that he can for the unborn?

As eccentric as it might sound, the point of a democratically elected representative is to represent, and of course put into action, the wishes of the voters who put them in office. Given the choice between an uncouth and sometimes offensive, but nevertheless anti-abortion, candidate, and an ostensibly charming but deadly earnest pro-abortion candidate, it would surely be reasonable for Americans who oppose abortion to vote for the former.

The confirmation of Trump’s nomination, Justice Barrett, this week is indicative of a presidency that has sought to combat abortion at every opportunity. Indeed, the confirmation is one of several battle honours that the President has won over these last four years, and which we should, I think, give him credit for and hope he will be given the chance to add more victories to the anti-abortion flag.

One can only hope that one day that flag will be raised over the entire length and breadth of the United States, and indeed the whole world, a world free from abortion.

The Trump phenomenon is not itself defined wholly by abortion, of course, but a messy concatenation of various political combats that have beset the USA for decades. And there might be other issues about Trump that even anti-abortion voters find so offensive that they simply cannot reconcile themselves with the President.

Nevertheless, if one thing can be said for Trump, it is that, for better or worse, he is a street fighter who does truly “fight in the trenches” for those he was elected to represent. It may be that, at this current time, it takes such a man as unyielding and immune to the slings and arrows of his enemies to wage that fight – and accordingly go even further and represent not only his base, but the most disenfranchised class in the United States, the American unborn.

Several months ago, I contributed a SPUC blog post about Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy, in which the main character, Guy Crouchback, believed that “one day he would get the chance to do some small service which only he could perform, for which he had been created”. Moreover, “If only one soul was saved that is full compensation for any amount of loss of ‘face’.”

Might it be that this notion of “service”, one “which only he could perform”, also applies to Trump? This is what Americans opposed to abortion must now ponder as 3 November fast approaches.

Yes, Trump is a deeply flawed man, offensive to many – but so is abortion. Indeed, to say that abortion is offensive does not do the deed justice. And what is rudeness compared to the loss of 50 million lives in United States alone? Given the opportunity to do a good thing, then, it may be that a flawed man can still perform an invaluable service, and in doing so, save a multitude of souls – and perhaps even his own.