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Why I Can't Vote for Trump: True Pro-Life Convictions Are Non-Negotiable

Lisa Smiley with her son Zeke.
Lisa Smiley with her son Zeke. | (Photo: Lisa Smiley)

In my decision to vote for a candidate in an election, the right to life is the most important issue I consider. Perhaps it is because my own life was saved and redeemed from abortion. I am alive today because my Chinese mother broke the law and gave birth to me.

Raising my sisters and me in communist China, where a violent family planning regime forces parents into aborting additional children, my mother risked her life and safety to keep us from being taken by armed government agents.

We are talking about real lives here. I am one of them. My son, Zeke, is another. Diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome in utero, our doctors adamantly pressured us to abort him.

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My husband and I refused. We raised him, loved him and were completely blessed by him … until we buried him just two months ago when he passed away at the age of seven. We have never regretted our decision.

Yet every day I think about the millions of babies who weren't so lucky and never had a chance at life, because "pro-choice" advocates and our very own laws have told women it is okay to discard their children for whatever reason imaginable.

Yes, the issue of life is very dear to my heart and something my conscience will not allow me to compromise on.

Which brings me to the trouble with Donald Trump, the current Republican frontrunner. He came out making a lot of promises to the American people. Holding a tough line on immigration, promising to build a wall and calling out both parties for incompetence, he vows to "make America great again."

Love him or hate him, his bold TV debate performances woke Americans up. He also claimed to be pro-life, but "with the caveats." However, as the months of campaigning have gone by, we have seen him traipse back and forth on major issues — and the issue of valuing every human life has been no exception.

Trump's views on abortion, past and present (very present — like this week), give me little confidence that he will fight for the pro-life cause. In 1999, Trump described himself as "very pro-choice." Since then, however, he says his views have "evolved."

Yet Trump has said his extremist, pro-abortion sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, would make a "phenomenal" justice. She argued for a constitutional right to the hideous practice of partial-birth abortion. Of course, he said a few months later that he'd have to rule her out now.

During this year's March for Life, he was the only Republican candidate who said nothing about abortion, while all the other candidates vowed to defend every precious life — whether lives in the womb, special needs children or any innocent life. Trump extols the child almost aborted who becomes a "superstar," though his views are uncertain if that child were ever a "loser" (to use his words).

He has also gone on record saying he is for the status quo of funding Planned Parenthood as it is currently being funded. Yet when he was forced to clarify his stance, he finally said he would sign a bill to defund it if he became president.

But apparently, he still, to this day, believes Planned Parenthood is an organization that "does do wonderful things." He's repeated that sentiment, also saying, it "does a lot of good" and "does a really good job." Such views are right in line with Secretary Hillary Clinton, whose pro-abortion activism has defined her public policy for decades.

Lisa Smiley is a mother of four precious children, including one now with his Creator in Heaven. She earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of California-Irvine. Lisa blogs at LisaSmiley.com as well as for Bound4LIFE International, a grassroots movement to pray for the ending of abortion, carry the spirit of adoption, and believe for revival and reformation. Together with her husband James, they raise their family in the Dallas area. The views of the author are her individual opinions and not necessarily those of Bound4LIFE International, which takes no official position for or against individual candidates. Reprinted with permission from Bound4LIFE.

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