Beware of "pro-life" warmongers

Be wary of "pro-life" war-mongers. Consider a thought exercise. Are there politicians who give lip-service to the pro-life movement, but show elsewhere that their support for human dignity is grossly distorted or an outright fraud? With their lips do they say they support life while supporting senseless deaths in unjust and needless wars—including wars or bombings that victimize civilians, women, and children? Does their desire to serve some war-profiting or political ambition supersede their claimed pro-life stance? 

WHO ARE SOME OF THESE "PRO-LIFE" POLITICIANS WITH DANGEROUS AFFINITY FOR WAR?

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is well-known for his affinity for war.  Graham recently praised Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky for sending Ukrainian soldiers to die instead of American soldiers on behalf of Graham's ambitions.  (See the end of this article for context and source material on the Ukraine-Russian conflict to see how Western forces, including the US, EU, and NATO, provoked the war. (Jump to end))

In 2023, Graham joked with Zelensky about how "the Russians are dying" and said the U.S. funding the war was "the best money we've ever spent." Graham declared that they would fund Ukraine until their last person is killed. In 2016 he urged Ukraine to attack Russians in the Donbas where ethnic Russian civilians were killed. According to a Grok query, Graham has posted on X about Russia and/or Ukraine some 80 times already in 2025 through August 7. He has even called for sanctioning any nation that engages in commerce with Russia. It is effectively economic terrorism against countries that do not pursue Graham's war ambitions. Does he rally for the unborn remotely to this extent?

In 2023, Graham called on Israel to "level the place," in reference to Gaza, which is populated by millions of civilians.   

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for several individuals in Israel and Palestine, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Among the Israeli officials' listed crimes are:

• "crimes against humanity and war crimes" 
• "[caused] lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies, [which] created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza, which resulted in the death of civilians, including children due to malnutrition and dehydration."
• "intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population of Gaza."

Lindsey Graham responded to the ICC's arrest warrants not with outrage of the accusations, not a refutation of the accusations, but by threatening the ICC court itself with sanctions and any "nation or organization that aids or abets" the arrest warrants. He made no mention of the starved and killed Palestinian civilians and children. Graham's calls for sanctions against the ICC were echoed by other "pro-life" politicians including Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Tom Cotton, none of whom addressed the arrest warrant details.  Cotton even called on the president to leverage the Hague Invasion Act against the ICC, which calls to "use all means necessary" to respond to such an arrest. 

In June 2025, Graham called for extermination of Iran and regime change and called for sending American troops to Iran.  

Ted Cruz has vocalized pro-life positions, yet recently attempted to use the Bible to justify Israel's June attack on Iran, saying "Biblically, we are commanded to support Israel." The comment is, of course, false.  It is grotesque to support a war by automatically siding with Israel instead of the context of the situation. 

Particularly in this case, it does not appear the attack against Iran satisfied "just war" criteria. On June 13, 2025 Israel conducted bombings and assassinations on the pretext that Iran was imminently threatening Israel with a nuclear weapon that all sides admit they did not have. The action defied the testimony of National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard who reported Iran was not building a nuclear weapon as of March 2025.  The action defied the testimony of the  International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi, who said on June 17, 2025 that his inspectors did not identify "any proof" that Iran had the nuclear plans that US-Israel claimed. Grossi said the claims about when Iran would use a nuke were "speculation." The IAEA reported this to the relevant parties. The attack on Iran failed "just war" criteria and was an act of aggression. The culprits offered no evidence that what was done was an act of self-defense. It is particularly vexing given that the President's diplomat in Iran, Steve Witkoff, said only a few weeks prior that negotiations were progressing. In April, Witkoff said the US was not seeking full denuclearization and were working with Iran on enrichment levels.  

Meanwhile, the world—at least the world who managed to avoid the corporate media's censorship of Gaza—has seen Israel committing numerous acts of violence against civilians

In July, Jerusalem Cardinal Pizzaballa responded to Israel striking the only Catholic church in Gaza: "the IDF says by mistake, but we are not sure about this, they hit the Church directly, the Church of the Holy Family, the Latin Church."  Israel's attack on the Church of the Holy Family killed 3 and wounded multiple others. Pope Leo also condemned the "attack by the Israeli army on the Catholic Parish of the holy Family in Gaza City..." The Pope also said, "[T]his act adds to the continuous military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza."

Bishop Strickland issued a public letter condemning Israel's genocidal ambitions against the people of Gaza.  The situation in Gaza was described by first-hand witness Lt. Col. Tony Aguilar as "post-apocalyptic."  The Gazan terrain is a landscape of rubble. Cruz didn't even mention Gaza nor the Palestinians when he claimed the Bible condoned modern Israel's political ambitions. 

At least 5 more Palestinians, including two children, have starved to death in the past 24 hours, raising the total hunger-related deaths to 217, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

LIVE updates: https://t.co/pA4LOe8Llx pic.twitter.com/wjERNluDBT

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 10, 2025

House Speaker Mike Johnson condemned congressman Thomas Massie who said the US should stay out of other nations' war and that the president has to consult congress first anyway.

Regarding the Israel-Iran conflict, Johnson said Israel's June 13 attack that killed civilians and Iranian officials was "defensive." Johnson has repeated the common phrase among neocon politicians that we have to "stand by our ally Israel," even when they are starving children and killing civilians in Gaza. Recently, Johnson also echoed Ted Cruz's erroneous claim that the Bible says we have to agree with Israel in whatever conflict they're in. 

Former Vice President Mike Pence insisted that "Americans will have to die for Ukraine" if they start losing the war. He was booed in July 2023 for saying the US needed to fund the Ukraine war.  In July 2025, Pence called for sending even more weapons to Ukraine to keep the war going.  

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth authorized the bombing of a civilian building in Yemen to kill a single man. Leaked text messages revealed the aftermath of the bombing: "We had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed." 

In 2022, Texas congressman Dan Crenshaw famously sparred with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on war. Crenshaw supported the war versus Russia in part because he thought US war ambitions could be achieved "without losing a single American troop." This sentiment is similar to what Graham said to Zelensky in celebrating Ukrainian deaths over American.  Greene, among others, challenged this logic that somehow spilling Ukrainian's blood is justification for a war. Crenshaw responded to Greene with a non sequitur, ad hominem attack. 

On another occasion, Crenshaw said he would "kill" Tucker Carlson (who is vocally pro-life and opposed to US war-meddling) if he met him and added that he wasn't joking. Crenshaw later denied ever having said it.  

And there are other politicians who profess to be "pro-life" but who have a propensity for war without cause. These are just a sample.

STATE OF THE PRO-LIFE LANDSCAPE

We know that politicians espousing pro-life sentiments find great favor with pro-life voters. After all, support for the unborn is a "pre-eminent priority" as the USCCB has affirmed. Consider, if a politician leverages this worthy desire for votes, but the pro-life landscape remains worse, unchanged, or marginally better, is it worth demanding more from these politicians in lieu of the wars and travesties they elsewhere promote? 

Many pro-lifers celebrated the recent closure of several Planned Parenthood abortion centers. However, from the perspective of the abortion industry, their primary form of abortion is mail-order abortion pills now. According to the abortion-promoting Guttmacher Institute, at-home chemical abortions went from 6% in 2001 to 31% in 2014 to 63% in 2023.  These are their latest figures.  The figure could easily be over 70% or more by now.  The abortion industry may have already planned to close brick and mortar abortion mills because they don't "need" as many of them anymore. More women and girls are serving as their own doctors in their own homes, aborting their children in private, facing the risks of self-administered abortion like hemorrhaging or potentially fatal infection. The abortion industry shows little to no concern for the women (nor obviously the babies). The Ethics and Public Policy Center revealed data showing over 10% of women taking the abortion pill experience a "serious adverse event."  Taxpayer dollars not paying for abortion is a good thing. But the abortion industry has many more tentacles at work.

Recently, the Supreme Court heard the case on the safety of mifepristone.  The plaintiffs included pro-life doctors who had to absorb the fallout in ER visits and other increased care due to the increase in side effects from more women self-administering abortions at home.  The court ruled 9-0 that the plaintiffs did not have "standing." But ultimately the court did not confront how mifepristone was incorrectly fast-tracked by the FDA in 2000 on the false grounds that it was a life-saving treatment. The abortion pill remains on the market. 

The abortion industry and their political allies have increased the number of Plan B pills in vending machines, including at colleges. The drug is an abortifacient. The FDA's drug label for Plan B admits it can work by preventing implantation after conception has already occurred.  

IVF use is on the rise, and lawmakers are pushing for government funding for that procedure, which typically results in the discarding of some 80% of embryos— human persons—each time.  The National Catholic Register reports more babies die annually from being discarded via IVF than abortion.  They don't need brick and mortar clinics for these types of abortions.  Meanwhile, "pro-life" politicians, like Ted Cruz, proposed a bill that would withhold Medicaid funding from any state that banned IVF.  

Are these "pro-life" politicians factoring in these variables about the abortion pill? Plan B? IVF?  Are they a step behind?  Are their pro-life efforts lacking?

CALLING "PRO-LIFE" WAR-MONGERS TO REDIRECT THEIR WAR ATTENTION

Crisis Magazine Editor Eric Sammons synthesized the context of the issues of abortion and war succinctly: "[I]n terms of death and evil, the consequences of our foreign policy are nearly as destructive as the abortion holocaust."  

Like Euthanasia, the issue of lives lost and destroyed in wars is in the scope of pro-life enterprises, particularly when those wars are unjust, senseless, and—like abortion—victimize the innocent.  

Do these "pro-life" politicians fight for the unborn to the extent they fight to protect evident genocides elsewhere? Congressmen celebrate people dying in wars that only benefit the interests of political elites—is that consistent with the belief in the dignity of human life?  Do they fight for the unborn as hard as they fight to perpetuate war?

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APPENDIX: WHY IS THERE A WAR IN UKRAINE?

Western media has insulated the public on how NATO and the West provoked Russia. The following context for the Ukraine conflict is especially relevant in this analysis because the "pro-life" war-mongers flaming this war rarely address these variables:

• RFK Jr explains some of the profit motives for wars like Ukraine.
• Ukraine had and was actively killing ethnic Russians in regions like Donbas at the onset of the war, and the West boasted of arming those attacks.
• Putin cited the Donbas slaughter at the onset of the war.
• The 2015 film Ukraine on Fire by Oliver Stone is valuable in learning about the Maidan coup in Ukraine, orchestrated by Western politicians. The film is especially valuable in the sense that it is not tainted by post-2022 narratives.   A leaked phone call between US diplomats Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt revealed them planning the Maidan coup to install an official that would serve their ambitions against Russia. 
• Professor Jeffrey Sachs explains the Ukraine war in 10 minutes.
• Russia was prepared to stop the war in the earliest days if Ukraine accepted neutrality and avoid NATO membership.  In 2022, former British PM Boris Johnson intervened and stopped that peace deal.
• In January 2025, President Donald Trump—before his anti-Russian aggression of the summer— admitted NATO's encroachment on Russia's "doorstep" was understandably a problem for Russia.
• During 2014 conflicts, Russia had agreed to a ceasefire now known as the Minsk agreement. But former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President François Hollande admitted they arranged for Ukraine to use this ceasefire as a diversion to rearm and buy time instead of leading to peace. In 2025, Western officials have accused Russia of not wanting peace for not accepting new "ceasefires," but Russians do so in lieu of fake ceasefires in the past like Minsk. 
• RFK Jr. explains how Trump abandoned the nuclear range treaty in 2019 and that Biden and other war neocons have as their goal regime change in Russia.
• Tucker Carlson's interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• Tucker Carlson's interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
• Russia's terms for peace have been consistent for some time. These are primarily: 1. demilitarizing Ukraine due to its proxy use by NATO and lack of neutrality; 2. return to 1991 borders due to the same violation of NATO agreements and to protect Moscow from ranged missiles; and 3. assurance that Ukraine can never join NATO because that status obligates all NATO members to join any war in which Ukraine engages. 
• A meeting between Trump and Putin is scheduled in Alaska for August 15, the Feast of the Assumption. 

6 political behaviors of the Francis pontificate

Pope Francis and many of the bishops and Vatican spokespersons during his pontificate frequently behave in a manner matching modern propagandistic politicians. There are many examples. Here are 6.

CENSORSHIP

Francis Pontificate: Not only did the Pope command suffocation of the Traditional Latin Mass, but Vatican officials subsequently issued instruction censoring the TLM from being included among the bulletin mass times.

Hundreds of priests find themselves “cancelled” for reasons kept hidden by the aggressing bishops. In the typical case, there is no impropriety even alleged by the bishops. These priests are forbidden from public ministry. The latest inexcusable scandal was Pope Francis declaring the orthodox Bishop Joseph Strickland’s office in Texas vacant without due cause.

Politics: Recently, we’ve seen western governments even controlling social media sites to limit what is said and by whom. For example, Facebook has censored video of a living unborn baby. Both Facebook and Twitter censored a news story just prior to the 2020 election about Joe Biden’s son that was indisputably true. Social media knowingly censored true Covid information. Once the latest Ukraine conflict started, Youtube censored Oliver Stone’s 2016 film Ukraine on Fire, which incriminated the West in the 2014 Maidan coup. Youtube also recently removed interviews for the film The Sound of Freedom, which exposed a vast child-trafficking international network. It's a warlike tactic to take out an opponent's communication channels. These are a fraction of the censorship and account banning that has occurred in recent years at the behest of politicians.

Pope Francis 2016 (from Wikimedia Commons)

BLAMING A PROXY

Francis Pontificate: At the close of the recent “Synod on Synodality,” German heretical bishop Georg Bätzing claimed the “overwhelming majority of a world church has chosen” the sexual perversions he and many bishops (especially in Germany) have propagated. Of course, this is asserted gratuitously, because the practicing faithful believe the Church’s true moral teachings. The bishop points the finger at the faithful as a proxy for advancing his own ambitions.

Pointing the finger at the second Vatican council is also a common theme during the Francis pontificate. A Vatican official recently said, “Francis is the one who is pushing forward the application of Vatican II.” Yet Vatican II did not call for many of the Pope’s chief causes, such as the oppression of the Traditional Latin Mass. Cardinal Roche even claimed “The Council Fathers perceived the urgent need for a reform” in his letter defending suppression of Traditional Latin Mass. When cited this way, Vatican II has become a Rorschach blot, a proxy for advancing causes the Council did not call to advance.

Politics: The censorship tactic also ties into this, as government officials launder their power through big tech, belying the argument that these are “private companies.” They are instead used as proxies to do the bidding of the government entity.

In the Ukraine conflict, both NATO and U.S. politicians have insisted involvement in the war is limited to Russia and Ukraine and not NATO nor the U.S. However: In September, NATO candidly confessed the NATO expansion east was a cause for Russia’s response; the April Discord leaks show that the Pentagon was the source of war plans to which Ukraine did not have access; Hillary Clinton has said favor for Ukraine come with “strings;” British intelligence flat out said they support Ukraine so they can hurt Russia for non-acceptance of Western “lgbt+” ideology; President Biden’s son spearheaded funding for bioweapon research in Ukraine; and U.S. Undersecretary Victoria Nuland confirmed involvement with Ukraine biolabs. Sen. Tim Scott proudly said the U.S. was using “Ukranian blood” in the U.S. effort to weaken Russia. These are just a few of the direct involvements and interests the West has in Ukraine well beyond “freedom” help.

So, while Western politicians say their support is just altruism to help Ukraine, the operation appears ordered for Western interests. Ukraine is the proxy.

HYPOCRISY

A quick word on “hypocrisy.” The concept of hypocrisy is not merely condemning someone for that which one does himself. Someone addicted to smoking would be quite right and not hypocritical to discourage others from doing the same. Hypocrisy as used here is to condemn another for a behavior one condones for himself.

Francis Pontificate: Synod on Synodality pitchmen speak of the “openness” of the event. Yet participants are sworn to secrecy.

Pope Francis often makes statements like “say an emphatic ‘no’ to all forms of clericalism” while his pontificate is plump with clericalism. One example would be his attitude of placing himself above Church Fathers and preceding Popes when he rejected their teaching on the death penalty. Another is his absolutization of the Novus Ordo mass, in which the priest’s ad populum posture is a textbook form of clericalism. Other examples abound.

Politics: One of the politicized tactics of the abortion industry is to accuse the pro-life movement of being against “choice.” Of course, “choice” is a euphemism the abortion industry uses to disguise the intentional termination of an innocent human life. Meanwhile, when doctors offer women an actual “choice,” such as the abortion pill reversal (APR) protocol, the abortion industry has responded by attempting to silence that treatment, most recently in Colorado and California.

As mentioned above, the West has denied leveraging proxies throughout the business world – especially tech - and the international scene. Ironically, Nuland said last year, “It is classic Russian technique to blame on the other guy what they're planning to do themselves.”

FICTIONAL VICTIMS

Francis Pontificate: One of the battle cries of the Synod on Synodality is reaching out to people labeled “marginalized,” such as women or so-called “LGBT+” etc. As Professor Regis Martin said recently, “I have yet to meet any of these people. Who exactly are they whom we’ve so cruelly consigned to the margins of ecclesial life? … I really have not seen anyone who fits the description.”

Of course, the victimhood expressed here is fictional, since all of humanity is invited to participate in the full life of the Church, and the above persons are no exception. The only ostracized group today are the TLM attendees, ostracized by that very pontificate, and referred to in official Vatican documents as “members of the said group” distinct from all the other faithful. The heterodox cries of marginalization of women or the sexual identities commit a form of the fallacy of equivocation, confusing the non-possibility of a female priest or the non-possibility of blessing a sinful relationship as “marginalizing” those people. It’s similar to the modern world’s poorly thought-out attempt to redefine “love” as “endorsing” whatever someone does.

Politics: Fictional victimhood in the Synod mirrors fictional victimhood tactics in the world. Leftist ideologues have been conditioned to seek refuge in victimhood even when they act as bigoted aggressor. For example, in December, the Family Foundation had reserved a dining room at a restaurant later discovered to be owned by a leftist. Once the owner discovered the group was pro-life and pro-marriage, the owner rescinded the reservation and released a delusional statement claiming the Family Foundation sought to “deprive women and LGBTQ+ persons of their basic human rights” and that the restaurant staff felt “unsafe.” Of course, the natural law and millennia-old notion of marriage and desire to protect innocent life is no cause for alarm.

Another example of fictional victimhood prowls the world of modern feminism, which asserts that women are denied “equal pay” for equal work. However, the statistics they use for this assertion conflate the average pay of males and females in totality, ignoring job-types or amount of work. When those factors are accounted for, the so-called discrimination virtually vanishes. A hallucination of victimhood occurred when the U.S. women’s national soccer team cried foul on equal pay because they themselves rejected the collective bargaining agreement under which they would have made more had they signed it when offered.

EUPHEMISMS

Francis Pontificate: Pope Francis often uses the term “backwardness” as a pejorative against orthodox Catholics. He said, “There is incredible support for restorationism, what I call indietrismo (backwardness).” The term is non-theological. As a concept, looking backward per se is neither good nor bad. It depends to what one is looking back. Certainly, the Church in every age has looked back toward the Apostolic deposit and the preceding Magisterium to guide matters of the day. As mentioned in the proxy section above, Francis himself is ever looking “backward” to Vatican II and the 1960s to defend many of his teachings. In rejecting what he claims is “backwardness” of orthodox Catholics, he ironically (and unconvincingly) appeals to the 5^th century’s St. Vincent of Lerins. Also ironic is that his document detaching from Tradition is called Traditionis Custodes, which in word means “guardians of tradition” and in practice means obliterator of tradition. While Pope Francis belittles such “restorationism,” predecessors such as Pope Pius X said where “Christian doctrine…is neglected, to restore it.”

Another common term used by Francis and heterodox bishops is “accompaniment.” This is, again, a concept that is neither good nor bad, per se. It depends on who one is accompanying. Proverbs 13:20 says “[T]he companion of fools will suffer harm.” In 2018, Cardinal Cupich exposed the term as a vehicle leading to the 2023 Synod, which, among other offenses, blurred the authority of the hierarchy and laity: “Thus, in a genuinely synodal Church there is no hierarchical distinction between those with knowledge and those without. As such, the most important consequence of this call to accompaniment ought to be greater attention to the voices of the laity, especially on matters of marriage and family life.” Opening doctrine in this way to any laity has resulted in various justifications of sinful behaviors. Fr. Jerry Pokorsky explained: “instead of accompanying our Lord on the way of the cross, many Church leaders choose to accommodate sinners on sinners’ terms.”

Related to “accompaniment” is “inclusion.” The Synod touted concepts like “radical inclusion” in the context of women and so-called “LGBT+,” etc. But, as discussed in the fictional victims section above, the notion that any group is excluded is really only applicable today to TLM attendees against whom the Francis pontificate has been plainly hostile. Polish Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki said the modernist term “‘inclusiveness’ implies an acceptance of how a person defines him or herself, as if defining oneself were in obvious conformity with reality, inherently unquestionable, and therefore demanding affirmation.”

Politics: The abortion industry is dependent on lies, including many euphemisms like “reproductive health” or “her body.”

The gay “marriage” movement hides behind many euphemistic slogans like “love is love,” “same love” or “marriage equality,” none of which address the root of the matter of what is a marriage or what is a man and woman.

The term “underrepresented” is used to signal supposed injustice if there are not enough of certain people of a particular demographic involved in a business, industry, film, or similar. It’s also applied inconsistently. Modern use of “representation” is a euphemism to condition people to perceive injustice where there is none. Politicians then leverage this. Merely sharing, say, skin color, with another person does not amount to any sense of relevant “representation.” If a white female devout Catholic is asked who better represents her, Nancy Pelosi or Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria, she’s going to pick Cardinal Arinze. Today’s political use of “representation” appeals to trivial demographic characteristics when those characteristics are irrelevant to the context at hand.

ABUSE OF AUTHORITY

Francis Pontificate: The Pope’s quest to eradicate the Traditional Latin Mass is outside the scope of his authority. Cardinal Roche also abused authority proper to local bishops when he attempted to police them to impose Pope Francis’ Latin Mass restriction.

The removal of priests or even bishops without due cause is also external to the Pope’s or a bishop’s authority.

The Vatican Press office declared the Church was now ruled by Pope Francis as an individual, as opposed to the authority of Scripture and Tradition.

Politics: In an explicit overlap between the Francis pontificate and politics, the FBI was caught spying on traditional Catholics.

A court recognized the “abuse of authority” the U.S. government attempted to impose when demanding “vaccine mandates.”

Another court blocked Minnesota’s Democrat Secretary of State from forbidding the opposition party’s overwhelming leading candidate from appearing on the ballot.

FINAL THOUGHTS

What these overlapping tactics and language patterns between the Church and the world suggest is that the world is over-influencing the Church if not outright directing it. Language tricks and political tactics are not native to the pursuit of sound doctrine nor pastoral and familial leadership. It is indicative of a modern and worldly infection warned against by many in Church history:

Everyone must understand that such ravings and others like them, concealed in many deceitful guises, cause greater ruin to public calm the longer their impious originators are unrestrained. They cause a serious loss of souls redeemed by Christ’s blood wherever their teaching spreads, like a cancer; it forces its way into public academies, into the houses of the great, into the palaces of kings, and even enters the sanctuary, shocking as it is to say so. (Pope Pius VI, Inscrutabile, 7, 1775)

The common enemy of the human race is wholly engaged in undermining faith, destroying truth and disrupting unity by worldly wisdom, heretical discussion, subtle, clever deceit, and even, where possible, by the use of force. (St. Pius IX, Quartus Supra, 2, 1873)

According to these rules, Venerable Brethren, you should judge those to whom you will entrust the ministry of the divine word. Whenever you find any of them departing from these rules, being more concerned with their own interests than those of Jesus Christ and more anxious for worldly applause than the welfare of souls, warn and correct them. If that proves insufficient, be firm in removing them from an office for which they have proven themselves unworthy. (St. Pius X, Pieni L’animo, 9, 1906)