Gaslighting, pro-death Dems vs. timid Republicans

The Jon Tester vs. Tim Sheehy senatorial face-off isn’t the only Montana contest in the national spotlight, funneling in multi-millions of out-of-state dollars. This year’s Treasure State ballot features CI-128, arguably the most far-reaching, all-trimesters “abortion rights” proposal anywhere in the country. This precedent-setting amendment to the state’s constitution has become a top priority of the abortion industry and the abortion-infatuated Democratic Party. When last I checked, Big Money cash donations to the CI-128 campaign outpaced opponent giving nearly 700 to 1, and it is estimated proponents will have spent up to $50 per voter by Election Day to make Montana the Killing Fields of the West.

CI-128 is Montana’s race to the bottom, seeking to make us a blood-red state, distinguished by how efficiently we can eliminate an entire class of humans who, through no fault of their own, became babies their parents didn’t want. One day, healthily thriving in the womb. The next day, poster children for “reproductive freedom,” their tender lives printed on death certificates with invisible ink. We never saw them. We never knew them. We never will. Their crime was “existing” – the direct results of the reproductive freedom their mothers now claim they don’t have.

CI-128 was drafted to become a constitutional Trojan Horse, not only making abortion at all stages of development protected by law, but even protecting child predators who arrange for their victims’ abortions without parental knowledge. The vague and slippery language of the amendment, which intentionally replaces “women” with the gender-neutral word “person,” also opens the door to sex-change hormones and surgeries on minors without parental consent, and to constitutional protection for biological men to compete in female athletics. When Attorney General Austin Knudsen ordered that the ballot language be changed to give voters a full and honest explanation of the amendment’s actual effects on current law, the far-left justices of Montana’s Extreme Court overruled him and reinstated the proponents’ pregnant text, conceived to birth a dozen lawsuits that will radicalize Montana law. Indeed, when asked at a recent forum to explain the effects of the convoluted word choices, Montana ACLU Legal Director Alex Rate’s response to each question was the same: “That will need to be determined by the courts.”

The challenges defenders of life face in Montana are unique only by degree. Organizers, emboldened by the shocking passivity of the Christian community in our state two years ago when the LR-131 partial-birth abortion ban was defeated, have targeted us to become the nation’s prototype for what can be accomplished when pro-lifers compromise and retreat. We witness this retreat not only in the churches, but with almost every Republican candidate for federal office, right up to J.D. Vance and Donald Trump. Strong men, intimidated by sign-toting women and the twisted slogans of the secular Left. What is going on?

Podcaster and counselor Rick Thomas put his finger on it recently, when commenting on the Democratic National Convention’s giddy celebration of abortion, calling it “a master class in gaslighting.”

Gaslighting, Thomas explains, is “the art of making someone question their reality by presenting falsehoods with unwavering confidence.” Says Thomas, “One of the most glaring examples of this manipulation is the term ‘abortion rights.’ … The DNC’s clever wordplay attempts to obscure the truth: that what they are advocating for is not a matter of personal rights, but the taking of human life.” Thomas is perhaps suggesting that America’s apparent widespread acceptance of abortion is more illusion than truth, reflecting public confusion over the reality of abortion itself, and the true meaning of rights and freedom. “This linguistic sleight of hand is a prime example of how gaslighting works: it leads people to support a cause they might find morally reprehensible when stripped of its euphemisms,” Thomas concludes.

And yet, our Republican politicians remain timid and tongue-tied when the topic of abortion comes up. Instead of speaking out confidently with an articulate pro-life message, they send us around a mulberry bush of political gutlessness, emphasizing the “Conception Exceptions” (rape and incest), innocent lives they are willing to sacrifice for a vote. Then they propose various government interventions and welfare schemes for mothers who remain mothers to term. Rather than turning the hearts of Americans back to where they really want to be (embracing life), these petrified politicians are actually contributing to the gaslighting of the pro-death Democrats.

Let’s pause, and imagine a different scenario, say, where Donald Trump is debating Kamala Harris. With a soft but firm voice, he responds this way to Harris’ canned speech about “reproductive freedom” and a woman’s right to control her body:

“Every American who has eyes that see, ears that hear and hearts that break, knows that abortion is the ending of innocent human life. It is not the removal of tonsils or an appendix from one’s body. He or she is a genetically unique and separate human being, with its own DNA and its own individual soul. If it is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being, and abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being, then abortion is morally wrong. Before we talk about anything else, we must begin by understanding that.”

Then Trump continues:

“And you, Kamala Harris, are going to stand there, giving us a moral lecture on the right to kill, and on all the reasons and circumstances why killing of innocent human beings is justified or even good? The so-called “right” of a mother – and indeed a father – to contract with someone to kill their child? The human right to kill a human? I would suggest to you that it is precisely this disdain for the value of life itself that has led the world into endless wars, endless genocide and endless human misery. How many more bombs and rockets must we ship to Ukraine, with young men’s names on them? The connection here is fundamental. It is the failure to see and embrace the value of one human life in all circumstances.”

Where would we be in the pro-life cause today, if political candidates and officeholders had the courage to say just that? If they adopted the “manly” mindset of Virginia state Delegate Nick Freitas, who put it succinctly: “When the innocent are in peril, the strong have an obligation to stand up and defend them, even if they’re the only ones left to do it.”

Now consider the pervasive absence and silence of America’s churches. Ironically, for all their posturing about not wanting “politics” in the church, church leaders are being exceedingly political. They are allowing themselves to be influenced by what politicians and secular humanist public figures have to say. When Republicans decide it’s “too risky” to speak the truth about abortion, the so-called “non-political” church leaders fall in line. They are allowing the politics of abortion rights to apply duck tape to their mouths and inject Novocaine into the consciences of their congregations. The politicians are afraid of losing votes. The pastors are afraid of losing members. Both are being political. Meanwhile, God is saying, “Look up. I am still here. Truth is still truth. Faith brings the victory. Be not afraid.”

The Democrats are not afraid. Their mantra in defense of killing the unborn is always the same: We demand our right to control our own bodies and make our own medical decisions! Funny thing, though. I don’t recall one Democrat showing the slightest concern about controlling our bodies and making our own medical decisions when Americans were being forced to take the COVID vaccine or lose their jobs.

Let’s examine the “my body, my rights” claim more closely. Question: In an abortion, how many bodies are involved? Answer: Two – the mother’s and the child’s. As any human biologist will tell you, the body of the unborn child is distinctly different from that of the mother, with entirely separate DNA. If the mother’s body carries sovereign rights of control, then so does the baby’s. The “body argument” is a tie score, and therefore a non-argument.

So the overriding consideration in every abortion is the question of life. Two distinctly different lives are involved in an abortion, each living in their own environment. Yet in every abortion, only ONE life is at stake – that of the child. While there are two bodies, there is only one life that is ended when an abortion happens. Obviously, the life claim takes precedence over anything else. For indeed, the protection of innocent human life is the very measure of humanity and the definition of a just and civil society. It forms the foundation of true freedom. That’s true regardless of how those little ones were conceived – a factor over which they had no control.

As far as the “life of the mother” argument, I hearken back to the words of my old boss, Dr. Ron Paul, who delivered thousands of Texas babies. Dr. Paul told me he had never witnessed, either in his practice and anyone else’s, a circumstance where an abortion was necessary to save a mother’s life. If anything like that should ever occur, current law and accepted standards of medical ethics would ensure preservation of the mother’s life. Dr. Paul is telling us that the claim of protecting the mother’s life has no grounds in reality. Indeed, if a rare medical condition occurred where saving a mother’s life resulted in the end of her pregnancy, this could not be called an elective abortion, but rather, a simple matter of saving one life rather than losing two. That’s called pro-life.

In the end, this is far more a spiritual battle than an intellectual one. More a matter of the heart than the head. A fight for America’s very soul, which dies a little more each day, with each baby that is killed and forgotten. When an abortion rights demonstrator carries a sign that reads “OUR Bodies, OUR Futures, OUR Abortions,” that message leaves no room in the human heart for the person on the other end of the suction tube – the person who has no signs to carry and no voice to speak. Who demands nothing more from us than the right to be left alone. The right to live.

It is a frenzied celebration of selfishness that screams out, “There is no child! There is only ME! MY future. MY comfort. MY pleasure. MY freedom. MY rights. MY life.” Why, we must ask, should we assume that the child does not exist? Because it is small? Because it is weak? Because it is unseen? Because it is unheard? Because it has no vote? Are these “life disqualifiers”? If she could speak, would she say, “Go ahead and kill me?” If he could vote, would he vote for a pro-choice Democrat? These children can’t speak and can’t vote, so that leaves us to speak and vote for them.

It’s a matter of life. It’s also a matter of seeing with our hearts – seeing all those precious little faces that are being taken from us. Not allowing the euphemisms and gaslighting of the Democrats to convince us of another reality that isn’t real. Those kids were real, and they are gone from us now. All 65 million of them. When will it stop?

Let it begin by pro-life politicians rediscovering their vertebrae, and pro-life Christians demanding the same from the preachers in their pulpits. Until that happens, the Democrats keep winning, and America’s babies keep dying.