An unsurprisingly uninspiring debate

"I did not have sex with a porn star."

Donald Trump’s statement in response to an arguably ad hominem attack from Joe Biden during their June 27 debate must have given more than a few of us flashbacks to Bill Clinton -- specifically, his "It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is" dance as he tried to linguistically sidestep allegations about Monica Lewinsky.

The main differences, though, were that Clinton was the sitting president at the time and that the problem was not the sex, but the abuse of power. Trump has always had notorious baggage when it comes to questions of character, going back to New York Post headlines from his decades in New York.

In the debate, Trump was right to call out Democratic extremism on abortion. But the questions called out both candidates’ ignorance on the issue.

"First of all, the Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill. And I agree with their decision to have done that, and I will not block it," Trump said. The Court did no such thing. The justices issued a decision on the abortion-pill case based not on the merits or safety of chemical abortion, which is increasingly becoming the default method, but on whether the plaintiffs had standing for the case. It in no way indicated approval of chemical abortion.

Trump’s words in support of abortion pills were callous. Prescribing abortion pills is an abandonment of pregnant girls and women.

Trump also said that during the half-century life of Roe, "everybody" wanted abortion to return to the states. That’s not true. The California Democratic governor has been advocating for the expansion of abortion in states other than his own because that’s what his party is about. And the pro-lifers who have been on the front lines of providing hope to scared women who feel like abortion is their only option — they wouldn’t be included in Trump’s "everybody." I daresay the vast majority of them never popped a champagne bottle because states can now choose if they are going to allow abortion or not.

I want the end of abortion in America. I am not content that New York will double down on its status as the abortion capital of the country. I want women to be free from all the coercions and pain of abortion. Women deserve better than abortion. In the debate, it sure sounded — not for the first time — like Trump still doesn’t get the heart of the pro-life movement.

And Trump quoted Ronald Reagan. Someone should have assigned him to read Reagan’s "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation," his 1983 essay for The Human Life Review. In it, Reagan (then the sitting president) wrote: "Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. ... The English poet John Donne wrote: ‘... any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'"

Needless to say, there was no Donne in the first 2024 presidential debate.

Reagan continued: "Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide."

So much for Trump’s states’-rights-fest.

There are electoral realities, but there is also truth and justice. "Follow the science," we were told not long ago. In the case of abortions, sonograms have made reality crystal clear. But politicians of both parties choose their own delusions to justify not having the courage to speak for the voiceless unborn.

I’ve not said much about Biden’s performance, perhaps because criticizing him feels like a form of elder abuse. Over the decades of his career, he has taken about every position on abortion there is. On debate night, he said he was not for late-term abortions. That is a lie.

And so here we are — needing to take this debate as a reality check. Teaching true history, not ideological readings of it, will help. Virtue education can encourage men and women of character to examine their consciences in their daily routines and amid world-changing events, and all things in between. We can raise children who appreciate civic life and public service as noble work — the service of humanity.

Many of us were not surprised at how uninspiring the Biden-Trump debate was. Still, we were sad. What we do with that sadness will show the character of people and institutions alike. Character is not a relic of the past — unless we surrender the best of us.