Donald Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board Slams Supreme Court Abortion Ruling as a “Tragedy”

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 28, 2016   |   9:53AM   |   Washington, DC

As LifeNews reported yesterday, the Supreme Court issued its biggest ruling on abortion since upholding the federal ban on partial-birth abortions in the Gonzalez decision. The Supreme Court reversed part of a pro-life Texas law that protects women’s health and has also saved the lives of thousands of unborn children and closed abortion clinics that can’t ensure adequate protection for women.

The 5-3 decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt shows the paramount importance of judge’s in this year’s presidential election.And that’s something Donald Trump’s new Evangelical Advisory Board noted in a statement it issued condemning the decision.

“In an unprecedented meeting last week with American Christian leaders, Donald J. Trump promised to only appoint pro-life justices,” the board’s statement said. “We commend him and pray that the tragedy of today’s ruling will not be repeated in subsequent administrations.”

Last week Trump met with over 1,000 pro-life leaders and activists from across the country and promised to appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court.

“We are going to appoint great Supreme Court justices… These will be justices of great intellect… And they will be pro-life,” he said.

During the meeting, Trump told them he would promote religious liberty and appoint pro-life judges:

Donald Trump won a standing ovation from hundreds of Christian conservatives who came to New York City Tuesday with a skeptical but willing attitude toward a man who has divided their group with comments on women, immigrants and Islam. In his comments the presumptive GOP nominee vowed to end the decades-old ban on tax-exempt groups’ – including churches — politicking, said religious liberty is “the #1 question,” and said he’d appoint anti-abortion Supreme Court justices.

“I believe that he came across very well as a messenger for everybody in the room, not just as a beneficiary of evangelical votes but as a fellow traveler. That’s not necessarily an easy distance for him to have traveled because people didn’t see him like that before,” said Marjorie Danenfelser of Susan B. Anthony’s List, which works to oppose abortion. “He made no missteps. There were no explosions.”

She said she couldn’t recall a candidate explicitly stating they would pursue “pro-life” justices. “They usually couch it in other words, like ‘constitutional,’” she said.

As president, he said, he’d work on things including: “freeing up your religion, freeing up your thoughts. You talk about religious liberty and religious freedom, you don’t have any religious freedom if you think about it,” he told the group, which broke in many times with applause.

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Trump also named a special faith advisory panel that will be filled by a number of respected pro-life leaders.

Trump’s campaign said the board will provide advisory support on issues important to evangelical Christians and other people of faith, including pro-life topics. The board also will lead “a much larger Faith and Cultural Advisory Committee” that will be announced later this month.

Trump praised the members of the new panel.

“I have such tremendous respect and admiration for this group and I look forward to continuing to talk about the issues important to evangelicals, and all Americans, and the common sense solutions I will implement when I am president,” he said.

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