It might seem counterintuitive: One of President Donald Trump’s first actions in office, on the Monday morning after he was inaugurated, was to act in defense of foreigners — most of them yellow, black, or brown. As LifeSiteNews reports, President Trump

signed an executive order today reinstating the “Mexico City Policy” banning government funding of foreign pro-abortion groups like the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

A cultural political football, the policy was first enacted by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 and was maintained by President George H.W. Bush until it was rescinded first by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1993. Eight years later, President George W. Bush reinstated Mexico City and it was in effect until Barack Obama reversed it upon entering office in 2009.

The Mexico City Policy bans funding to organizations that perform abortions overseas or lobby for legalizing them in foreign nations.

“But wait,” some liberal might say, as he peels off his vaginal protest hat. “I thought that Trump was for America First. If he thinks that fetuses are human, wouldn’t he first act to protect some American ones?”

The Civil Rights Movement for Unborn Americans

The obvious answer is that Trump doesn’t have the executive power to protect unborn children in the United States. That will take a complex series of courageous political actions, from choosing the right judges to appoint to the U.S. Supreme Court to doing whatever it takes — including trashing the Senate filibuster — to get each of them confirmed. We will need to throw all our political support behind each of those necessary actions.

After that, we will have to battle in each of the 50 states to pass the most protective laws that we can. A federal law protecting unborn children seems unlikely to pass, and would be difficult to enforce in places where the Culture of Death is deeply embedded. (Just check the map of counties that voted for Hillary Clinton.)

As the Civil Rights movement worked incrementally, pro-lifers want to pass the most protective enforceable laws that are politically possible at any given moment, while constantly pushing the envelope to protect even more Americans. The example of Prohibition reminds us of the drawbacks of imposing on a large and diverse country the norms of a narrow majority. It doesn’t last.

First, Kill No Foreigners

But there’s something deeper going on here. Yes, it’s true that this America-First president who has been smeared as a white racialist wants to protect non-white foreign children from U.S.-taxpayer subsidized violence. If that’s really surprising to anyone, it’s because that person has guzzled fake news and hysterical slander for so long that he thinks it’s a pumpkin latte.  

A proper nationalism — for which the best word is patriotism — begins by accepting limits.

• There are limits to U.S. borders: We don’t want to conquer the world.
• There are limits to the vigor of Anglo-American culture: We cannot assimilate limitless numbers of immigrants all at once.
• There are limits to our influence: We can’t remake the political cultures and defang the hostile religions of every nation across the earth.

The foreign policy that comes with healthy patriotism is traditionally called “Realism.” It accepts the fact that in a fallen world with tragic limits, we Americans are also fallen and limited. We must tend the flame of Liberty here at home, and cheer on others who wish to light it on their shores. But we won’t descend with fire and sword to set the world ablaze, as a past Republican president once recklessly promised the planet. As surviving Iraqi Christians would tell us, we might well do more harm than good.

Radical feminists who believe that unborn children are the moral equivalent of fibroid tumors want the U.S. government to impose that superstition on foreign countries.

Realism starts with the Hippocratic principle: First, do no harm. So it is only right and just that a Trump administration begin by cutting off U.S.-funded aggression against unborn children around the world.

Who Wants to Abort More Africans and Bolivians?

There are a few groups that are deeply unhappy with Trump’s decision:

• White racists (like those at Radix magazine) who want to see non-white kids aborted, both here and in foreign countries.
• Population cranks (like Paul Ehrlich) who want to see as many kids of any color aborted everywhere as soon as possible.
• Radical feminists who believe that unborn children are the moral equivalent of fibroid tumors, who want the U.S. government to impose that superstition on foreign countries (from Ireland to the Philippines) where the majority disagrees.
• Leftists at the Sierra Club, who are worried about population growth in the U.S. They think it’s immoral to stop foreigners from crossing U.S. borders, but moral to stop them from having children back at home.
• Elitists in every country who crave control over the child-rearing choices of the poor, who for decades have threatened the weakest people on earth with cutting off food and medical aid, if they didn’t stop having children. From forced sterilization in India to forced abortion in China, the track record of global “population” activists makes the worst of European colonialism seem positively benevolent.

Dark warnings from elitists at the Rockefeller Foundation and similar groups that population growth (here and abroad) threatened America largely lay behind Roe v. Wade, as Justice Blackmun’s citations in that decision freely admitted. As current abortion enthusiast Justice Ginsburg told the New York Times: “[A]t the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

Are We Images of God or Pets at a Kill Shelter?

And there’s the rub. Supporters of national sovereignty and a market economy see poor people (both here and abroad) as our equals under God, who stand in need of enforceable property rights, economic freedom, and sane political order. Given those crucial but fragile human goods, they can equal us or outpace us, as many recently destitute Asian nations are doing.

Scornful leftists like Hillary Clinton who find millions of Americans “irredeemable” and “deplorable” see poor people differently. The Clintons, Blackmuns, and Ginsburgs of this world look at less fortunate countries like vast shelters full of adorable, starving pets. We’ll adopt as many as we can (via immigration), then neuter or euthanize the rest.

And that’s the bottomless chasm of world view that now divides America.