2024 Election Analyses
and
2025 Public Policy Action Items
Summary and Action Items
With a new President, a new Pa. U.S. Senator, and a new Pa. Attorney General, I offer this 2024 Election Analyses and proposed 2025 Public Policy Action Items.
Three points summarize this analysis.
1. Donald Trump's victory was a gift of mercy. Despite his mixed messages and mixed (though majority positive) nominations, huge opportunities exist for pro-life public policy gains.
2. Also, his victory was not a "mandate" given the extensive negatives of Kamala Harris' candidacy. Her winning about 48.5% of the vote in Pa. and nationwide is quite sobering.
3. Catholic voters yielded mixed results. They voted much more for Trump but voted for pro-abortion referenda. Also, significant opposition to our movement's election efforts from some Catholic clergy and laity still existed primarily based on fear of controversy and/or intellectual dishonesty.
1. Gift and Gratitude
I propose that we regard our nation being spared a Kamala Harris Presidency as a gift of mercy from our Triune God likely in response to our movement continuing to serve as the Ten Good Men, cited in Genesis 19 and 20. I also propose that we express our gratitude by increasing our efforts in the pro-life movement.
2. Good News and Bad News
In addition to President Donald Trump's victory, the results of this Election in Pa. and across our nation
did yield some other significant good news, such as the Republicans winning a 53-47 majority in the
U.S. Senate, including Dave McCormick's victory for U.S. Senator from Pa., and Dave Sunday's victory
for Pa. Attorney General. Also, two pro-life Republican candidates defeated two incumbent pro-abortion U.S. House Members in Pa.
However, this election also yielded some significant bad news at the national and state level, such as the Democrats maintaining a 102-101 majority in the Pa. House. Also, three pro-life Republican U.S. Senate candidates lost very close elections to pro-abortion Democrat candidates in Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin.
I do not believe that Trump "won a mandate." The reality that Harris won 48.66% in Pa. and 48.4% nationwide is very sobering when considering her highly unappealing candidacy and the failures and incompetence of the Biden Administration.
Also, Trump apparently has a unique ability to motivate low propensity Republicans to vote for him and to appeal to certain voters who have previously largely voted for Democrat candidates. So, we cannot assume that this election promises good results for statewide Republican candidates in future elections. Please remember that in 2022 and 2023, without Trump on the ballot, statewide Republican candidates lost by relatively large margins.
3. Catholics and Voting
In Pa., and throughout the nation, Catholics increased their margin of voting for Trump from about 5% to 15%. However, as cited in a November 17, 2024 National Catholic Register article, this increase probably was not due to the life issue. In fact, as also cited by the Register, Catholics in States with "Abortion Referenda" voted more pro-abortion than the rest of their fellow citizens.
In a document, on the Elections webpage, I analyze the rationale for and the effectiveness of our movement's distribution of Pro-Life Voter Guides (Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself.), mostly on cars parked for Sunday Masses at Catholic Churches. I also review the reasons offered by some Catholic clergy for resisting this distribution, with the principal one remaining fear of controversy.
One underlying problem is that the Catholic Church has competing documents regarding Catholics and voting. The consistently pro-life document, Living the Gospel of Life, is summarized by preeminent obligation. The full statement by the Pa. Bishops reads as follows.
"We wish to reiterate that the intentional destruction of innocent human life, as in abortion and euthanasia, is not just one issue among many. Catholic teaching does not treat all issues as morally equivalent. The protection of human life from conception until natural death is the preeminent obligation of a truly just society."
- The Catholic Bishops of Pennsylvania, October 16, 2008
The U.S. Bishops' document Faithful Citizenship contradicts "preeminent obligation" by offering ambiguity and sophistry to teach Catholics that it can be morally acceptable to vote for pro-abortion candidates. An example is the following passage.
"[We] bishops do not intend to tell Catholics for whom or against whom to vote. Our purpose is to help Catholics form their consciences in accordance with God's truth. We recognize that the responsibility to make choices in political life rests with each individual in light of a properly formed conscience, and that participation goes well beyond casting a vote in a particular election."
- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Faithful Citizenship
4. Proposed Pro-Life Pennsylvania Public Policy Action Items
A. Contact Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday at 15 Strawberry Square, Harrisburg, PA 17120
Urge him to do the following.
1) Defend Pa.'s Medicaid funding restrictions in the current Court challenge, now in
Pa. Commonwealth Court. Since 1986, these restrictions have been annually reducing abortions in Pa. by 5,000.
2) Enforce Pa.'s infanticide law against the Pittsburgh area abortionists, abortion facility personnel and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center officials who are committing and/or enabling "in vivo" abortions. In such an abortion, the baby, at about 24-26 weeks gestation is delivered alive and then killed and some of his or her organs are harvested for sale to "medical researchers."
3) Act to remove the license from any Pa. abortion facility that violates Pa.'s sexual abuse reporting laws by not reporting abortions committed on girls 15 or younger. Some Pa. Department of Health inspections, even during the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf, revealed that such required reports were not being made.
The Pa. General Assembly can renew action in this area. In the 2021-2022 term, the Pa. Senate Health Committee passed a version of the " R.E.S.C.U.E." Bill, which is an acronym for "Reporting Evidence of Sexual Contact and Underage Exploitation."
B. Contact U.S. Senator Dave McCormick
Contact U.S. Senator Dave McCormick (SD-B40C Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510; www.mccormick.senate.gov; 202-224-6324) and urge him to oppose Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFKJ)'s nomination to be Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Although RFKJ has recently attempted to "soften" his pro-abortion position, he remains supportive of legal abortion for
24-weeks' gestation for any reason and until birth if the baby might have a disability.
RFKJ's recent claim to support "pro-life policies" at HHS is highly dubious because it only addressed relatively minor policies, such as the "Mexico City policy." He has not yet taken a position on rescinding the Biden Administration's policies that greatly expanded the use of chemicals to commit abortions.
Dr. Michael New summarized these policies in his "8 Questions for RFKJ" to which he has not yet responded. These questions are as follows.
1) A major reason why the U.S. abortion rate has increased since 2017 is that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy regulations on chemical abortions have become more permissive. In 2016, the FDA extended the limit for chemical abortion from seven to ten weeks and reduced the number of in-person visits from three to one. They did so without properly studying the combined public health impact of these rule changes. As HHS Secretary, would you support revoking these policy changes?
2) The FDA under the Biden administration continued the Covid-era practice of allowing women to obtain chemical abortion drugs through the mail. Chemical abortions could be fatal to women with ectopic pregnancies and could pose serious health risks to women whose pregnancies are past the first trimester. As HHS Secretary, would you instruct the FDA to require an in-person medical exam for women seeking chemical abortions?
3) As HHS Secretary, would you require that medical professionals report complications arising from chemical abortions? The FDA dropped this requirement in 2016.
4) HHS funds the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP). It awards federal grants to local teen pregnancy-prevention programs that emphasize contraceptive use rather than limiting sexual activity. During both the Obama and the Biden administrations, multiple analyses found that only a very small fraction of these programs actually reduced teen pregnancy rates. What would you do as HHS Secretary to ensure TPPP grants are funding programs that have a track record of success?
5) The HHS under the Biden administration deprioritized conscience rights in numerous ways. Recent HHS budgets have failed to prioritize conscience rights funding. The Biden administration eliminated HHS's Conscience and Religious Division. Additionally, the HHS Office for Civil Rights can no longer enforce conscience protections under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. What would you do to make conscience protection a priority as HHS Secretary?
6) In 2019, HHS under the Trump administration instituted the Protect Life Rule, which prevented Title X grantees from co-locating with abortion facilities or doing abortion referrals. Unsurprisingly, under the Biden administration HHS rolled back the Protect Life Rule. As HHS secretary, would you support reinstating it?
7) Planned Parenthood's most recent annual report indicates that they received nearly $700 million in government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements. Since money is fungible, these funds indirectly subsidize abortion. As HHS secretary, what would you do to reduce the amount of government funding going to Planned Parenthood?
8) As HHS secretary, would you strengthen abortion reporting requirements so that all states have to report aggregate data on the demographics of women obtaining abortions, the gestational age at which abortions were performed, the type of abortion procedures used, and complications and deaths resulting from abortions? Would you consider withholding state Medicaid funds from states, such as California and Maryland, that refuse to submit abortion data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)?
Mike McMonagle
President
Pro-Life Coalition of Pennsylvania
215-393-3610