Trump isn’t as pro-life as you think
Trump’s base praises him for being pro-life, but he revealed the limits of these virtues this past weekend. While he attended the March for Life, his administration released new visa rules advocating for the very opposite.
The new visa rules aim to restrict birth tourism, which refers to women traveling to another country with the intent to give birth there so the child will gain citizenship.
These new rules allow consular officers, who are in charge of issuing visas, to deny applicants they believe wish to travel mainly to give birth in that new country. These rules only affect B visas which are for nonimmigrants wishing to visit for pleasure, medical reasons or to see family and friends.
The 14th amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
This means birthright citizenship is a constitutional right. A right the Trump administration is looking to strip in the name of border security, even though the State Department couldn’t provide any concrete statistics for how often birth tourism occurs or the true extent of its perceived danger.
Supporters of these new rules say birth tourism is unfair to U.S. taxpayers and financially burdens the country. Although the argument of “who pays” in situations of birth tourism is morally unimportant, it should be stated that it’s not even a problem because 72% of international maternity patients pay for their own medical bills.
If it’s not an issue of finances and there’s no real statistics to support an argument for security issues, these rules come down to being not only unconstitutional, but also inherently anti-life and anti-women.
They prohibit pregnant women from traveling how they wish and limit the choices they can make for their future child, which will consequently impact these children’s opportunities. All while discriminating which women and which children will have these rights based off of the country they had no choice of being from.
So while Trump, a proclaimed pro-life warrior, stood for the rights of some life, he simultaneously ripped away rights from others.
At the march, Trump championed himself as a supporter of the pro-life movement.
He said, “Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House.”
What he truly meant was children born to American citizens have never had a stronger defender. Well, while they’re in the womb at least.
So if you support Trump for his seemingly pro-life stance, ask yourself what kind of life he’s truly fighting for. Then ask yourself where your respect for life ends. Does it end at the border? Does it end when life doesn’t look like you? Does it end when life doesn’t have the same privileges as you?
Trump has shown us his virtue is conditional. Is yours?
