The Tester-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 Democrat Party.
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.
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.
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, shamefully embracing anti-life “conception exceptions” (rape and incest) and various welfare schemes for mothers -- thus contributing to the gaslighting of the pro-death Democrats.
Imagine a different scenario, say, where Donald Trump is debating Kamala Harris. With a soft but firm voice, he responds this way to Harris’s lecture about “reproductive freedom” and a woman’s right to control her body:
“Every American who has eyes that see, earns 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.”
Where would we be in the pro-life cause today if political candidates and office-holders had the courage to say just that and adopted the “manly” mindset of Virgina 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 have become exceedingly political -- allowing themselves to be influenced by politicians and secular humanist public figures. 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 duct tape to their mouths and inject Novocain into the consciences of their congregations. The politicians are afraid of losing votes. The pastors are afraid of losing members.
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.
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.
Let it begin with 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.
A former Bozeman small businessman, Roger Koopman is president of Montana Conservative Alliance. He served four years in the Montana House of Representatives and eight years as a Montana Public Service commissioner.