By Bill Mefford
In June of last year, the Department of Justice arrested a small group of people from accused of running a service for wealthy Chinese women that allowed them to travel to the United States to give birth. There has been no uproar over any similar activity anywhere else, and there has been no administration movement on this issue since June of 2019. At least, there was nothing on this issue until Friday, January 24.
On the same day that the administration announced it’s rule to stop what they call “birth tourism” – something they had not done or said anything since June of 2019 – donald trump spoke at what is called the “March for Life.” The irony of speaking at a supposedly “pro-life” event while announcing a rule that will target pregnant women was completely lost on all of the attendees and the organizations that endorsed the march because not a single organization or organizer spoke a single word of protest.
It begs the question of why the trump administration would so clearly pander to evangelical voters by speaking at a rally and touting his supposedly “pro-life” bona fides while at the same time announcing a rule that turns immigration enforcement officials into reproductive policemen. Perhaps it is because trump knows, like the rest of us, that the March for Life is really a March for Some Lives.
You know what else was not talked about at the March for Some Lives? There is indeed a long list of people, especially children, who have been negatively impacted by this administration’s policies who weren’t talked about at the March for Some Lives.
There was nothing said in protest about another rule soon to be announced by this administration; the expansion of the Muslim Ban into more predominantly Muslim countries. This will impact even more Muslim children and prevent more families from being reunited, yet the only sound you heard on Friday were cheering crowds.
There was no mention this year or last about the trump administration’s prior attempt to cut $200 million from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which literally feeds women and children up to five years of age.
Nary a word was mentioned Friday about the immigrant children who had been housed in cages and the numerous children who are still separated from their parents, which as of July of 2019 stood at over 1,000 children still separated from their parents.
Likewise, nothing was said last year or this year about then-Environmental Protection Agency head, Scott Pruitt, who delayed banning a pesticide that scientists concluded causes serious health risks to children until 2022. The maker of the pesticide, Dow Chemical, is one of trump’s highest donors.
Oh, and the list could go on and on. Nor was anything said on Friday to defend DACA recipients, or the children of Puerto Rico who have had to live through numerous natural catastrophes while trump mocks and attacks the island and their leaders, or the children who have received healthcare from Obamacare while this administration repeatedly tries to strip the standing law of any agency or federal support, or the children whose families had stayed in the United States – sometimes for decades – from countries like Sudan, Nicaragua, Nepal, Haiti, El Salvador, or Honduras under Temporary Protected Status which was ended under this administration. I guess the March for Some Lives does not include lives from shithole countries.
The meanness of this administration is only surpassed by the idolatry and lack of compassion of his evangelical fan base who are put to sleep by his false “pro-life” rhetoric while completely ignoring the actual impact of his horrific policies. They favor meaningless symbolic gestures while ignoring the suffering of real lives. And I hate to even imagine it, but if he gets four more years the already narrow concern for the March for Some Lives will get even smaller.