Rachel Held Evans’ New Big Lie
Progressive Christian blogger Rachel Held Evans admits in her latest post that she’s delving into new territory with the latest big lie she’s attempting to promulgate among Christians.
“While I’ve written in the past about feeling caught between the pro-life and pro-choice camps, I’ve never used my platform to endorse a presidential candidate,” she wrote. “But as so many others have said, this year is different. Knowing many of my pro-life friends feel torn between voting for an unpopular but highly qualified pro-choice candidate in Hillary Clinton and an incompetent narcissist who poses a unique threat to our American democracy in Donald Trump, I’d like to make a proposal:
“You should vote for Hillary Clinton.”
Evans defends her election choice by stating that Clinton has “better policy proposals to help improve the lives of women, children and families” than Trump, whose Christian supporters she said are more likely anti-abortion than “truly pro-life.” She defines “pro-life” as the belief that:
“the sacred personhood of an individual begins before birth and continues throughout life, and I believe that sacred personhood is worth protecting, whether it’s tucked inside a womb, waiting on death row, fleeing Syria in search of a home, or playing beneath the shadow of an American drone.”
Evans further defended her claims about Clinton’s policies with documentation that could have just as easily been found on the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute’s website. But, she makes four main points, as a progressive Christian, that she feels are central to her argument:
- Voting pro-choice is not the same as voting for abortion.
- Criminalizing abortion won’t necessarily reduce abortions.
- Pro-life advocates should support, rather than oppose, efforts to help low-income families care for their children.
- If we want to dramatically reduce the abortion rate in this country, we must support efforts to make contraception more accessible and affordable.
She then unloads with a laundry list of almost entirely baseless and debunked claims about Trump—ranging from he’s a racist white supremacist to he mocks people with disabilities—that may as well have come directly from the the Clinton campaign’s talking points. She then “implores” evangelical Christians not to vote for the GOP nominee.
“Donald Trump is not your pro-life savior,” she wrote. “Of course, neither is Hillary Clinton.
“But Clinton is far better positioned to keep the abortion rate at the record low it saw under President Obama while the Republican Party works for the next four years to produce the kind of candidate the people of this country deserve.“
But, as Micaiah Bilger wrote for LifeNews.com, while Evans is entitled to her opinions, she’s not entitled to her own version of facts. Here’s some of the important stuff Bilger would like to remind you about:
Pro-lifers do agree with Evans on one point. Economic factors heavily influence women considering abortion. Like Evans, pro-lifers believe there needs to be more support for pregnant and parenting women and their families. Through pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies and other programs, pro-lifers are working to provide that support. More needs to be done, but pro-lifers already are doing a lot to help families—while getting attacked by Clinton-endorsed groups.
What Evans fails to mention is that one of Clinton’s key promises to Planned Parenthood would push more women toward abortion. Clinton wants to overturn the Hyde Amendment and force taxpayers to fund abortions.
Hyde Amendment is a widely-supported measure that prohibits direct taxpayer funding of most abortions and has done so since the late 1970s. Upheld by the Supreme Court, the amendment is now a target of abortion advocates who have moved from pro-choice to pro-abortion — forcing Americans not only to accept unlimited abortions before birth but also to pay for them.
Along with Clinton’s promise, the new Democratic Party platform also calls for taxpayer funding for abortions and an end to Hyde and the Helms Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding of abortion in foreign aid.
Bilger noted that more than two-thirds of Americans, according to a recent Marist Poll, say they oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, including a majority of women. She also noted that many pro-life Democrats—most of whom share many of Evans’ views—find they cannot vote for Clinton because her views are “too extreme.”
She concluded:
Clinton’s policies would not reduce abortions, as Evans claims. She and her party no longer want to reduce abortions or even view abortions as tragic or difficult decisions. Clinton no longer says abortion should be “rare.”
Sadly, Evans appears to have bought into the abortion industry’s arguments hook, line and sinker. If she spent time researching Clinton’s statements and pro-life research and arguments, she would see that Clinton is not an option for pro-life voters.
