The Erika Kirk Moment and the Kamala Harris Presidency That Wasn’t

When Erika Kirk gave her remarkable witness at her husband’s memorial service on Sunday, forgiving the young man who killed her husband, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, she so powerfully showed the power of radical love. A cross is not merely a decoration — around a neck or on a wall; it is a surrender to divine love, which seems only possible with supernatural grace. She also represented complementarity — the blessed difference between men and women, by God’s design:

Your wife is not your servant. Your wife is not your employee. Your wife is not your slave. She is your helper;you are not rivals. You are one flesh working together for the glory of God. I was Charlie’s confidant. I was his vault, his closest and most trusted adviser, his best friend. I poured into him and loved him so deeply and empowered him, because his love for me drove me to be a better wife. Every day, he honored me, and I prayed that I could be the wife that God needed me to be for my husband.

Women, I have a challenge for you, too. Be virtuous. Our strength is found in God's design for our role. We are the guardians. We are the encouragers. We are the preservers. Guard your heart; everything you do flows from it. And if you’re a mother, please recognize, that is the single most important ministry you have.

In our home, because Charlie traveled a lot, we tried to travel with him where we could. But I made sure that when Charlie returned from work, it was his sacred landing place away from the worries of the world. I didn’t make him feel guilty for being away too long or too much, or getting home too late. I always told him, home is here for you, and it’ll be ready for you. And I made it into this place where he wanted to be as soon as possible when he was on the road.

There was no keeping score between us. We were a team, working together for the same mission. I never wanted to be the one standing between Charlie and the task that God prepared for him, had set for him. And I knew Charlie would always do his best to help me with the same.

It reminded me of my one encounter with Pope Benedict XVI, when he gave me that message I try to mention now and again for all the women in the world. The words he handed me, which were recycled from Pope Paul VI at the end of the Second Vatican Council but still need to be heard now, again, even more than a decade after the reboot with me, said, in part:

At this moment when the human race is under-going so deep a transformation, women impregnated with the spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid mankind in not falling.

You women have always had as your lot the protection of the home, the love of beginnings and an understanding of cradles. You are present in the mystery of a life beginning. You offer consolation in the departure of death. Our technology runs the risk of becoming inhuman. Reconcile men with life and above all, we beseech you, watch carefully over the future of our race. Hold back the hand of man who, in a moment of folly, might attempt to destroy human civilization.

Wives, mothers of families, the first educators of the human race in the intimacy of the family circle, pass on to your sons and your daughters the traditions of your fathers at the same time that you prepare them for an unsearchable future. Always remember that by her children a mother belongs to that future which perhaps she will not see.

The message goes on to talk about the gifts and responsibilities of women in all walks of life. It ends with this: “Women of the entire universe, whether Christian or non-believing, you to whom life is entrusted at this grave moment in history, it is for you to save the peace of the world.”

I hate that Erika Kirk is in the situation she is in. But this is how you honor life. This is how you mother a culture. This is how you go about saving the peace of the world. We don’t all do it by running an organization, a movement. But we all have a mission.

‘Won’t Let My Freedom Rot in Hell’

I took a quick look at Kamala Harris’s book on her short, failed campaign for president. I read about when she got her first period, so you didn’t have to. What stood out to me was the contrast with the Kirk witness. She describes her husband as fiercely dedicated to abortion rights. She heralds Beyoncé for inspiring her — standing up for the right to end the lives of the unborn as a mother. It’s just such a miserable way of approaching life — as a problem, as something that is within our power to determine its worth. She quotes her hero, “moved by her sincerity and her courage.”:

“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician,” she said. “I’m here as a mother. A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies. A world where we are not divided.” She told the crowd: “It’s time for America to sing a new song.”

Look, I have nothing against Beyoncé, but we need more and have more to “lift” us up. Beyoncé sings:

Freedom! Freedom! I can’t move
Freedom, cut me loose!
Singin’, freedom! freedom! Where are you?
Cause I need freedom too!
I break chains all by myself
Won’t let my freedom rot in hell
Hey! I’mma keep running
Cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.

Quit abortion, and you get freedom to live. Realize the rot that abortion is on the soul — including that of our nation, such as it is — and you liberate the young who are tortured by the abortion industry. If the attraction to Charlie Kirk’s lifestyle is real — a longing for marriage and family and faith — we have hope of a much different song. And Kamala Harris is welcome to sing along, but it’s a different songbook, one that makes life possible, embraces it as a gift, and sees abortion as an implausible evil. One that ends lives and wrecks hearts. You may not be in love with Donald Trump as president, but be grateful that our first woman president wasn’t a woman who has an expansive view of abortion and no articulation of the power we have to save the peace of the world.

You Can’t Unsee Life and Death

Samuel Aquila thought he was going to be a doctor. Working as a hospital orderly in college, he witnessed two abortions. It shook him. Years later, he reflected on those two babies and their mothers and everyone involved in both lives, in a pastoral letter on abortion in America. He hadn’t become a medical doctor, but a doctor of souls. This week, Archbishop Aquila of Denver celebrated his 75th birthday — traditional retirement age for Catholic bishops (he at least submits his resignation and sees what Rome decides to do). In this still-new world of life after Roe v. Wade, it’s worth reflecting on what we’ve tolerated — and, in many cases, pressured women into.

On the 40th anniversary of Roe, he wrote:

I spent my first three years of college working as a hospital orderly and assisting in the emergency room, at a university student health center and in a hospital in California during summer break.

When I began the job, I hadn’t thought much about human suffering, or about human dignity.

But during my employment in hospitals, something changed. At that time, some states had approved abortion laws that I wasn’t even aware of. Because of those laws, when I was in college, I witnessed the results of two abortions. . . .

I held a basin as the doctor retrieved a tiny arm, a tiny leg and then the rest of the broken body of a tiny unborn child. I was shocked. I was saddened for the mother and child, for the doctor and the nurse. None of us would have participated in such a thing were it not an emergency. I witnessed a tiny human being destroyed by violence.

The memory haunts me. . . .

I witnessed the death of two small people who never had the chance to take a breath. I can never forget that. And I have never been the same. My faith was weak at the time. But I knew by reason, and by what I saw, that a human life was destroyed. My conscience awakened to the truth of the dignity of the human being from the moment of conception. I became pro-life and eventually returned to my faith.

I learned what human dignity was when I saw it callously disregarded. I know, without a doubt, that abortion is a violent act of murder and exploitation. And I know that our responsibility is to work and pray without ceasing for its end.

Today, you don’t have to work in a hospital to see the remains of a child whose life has been ended by abortion. You can pick up pills and be left to dispose of your baby alone. Your girlfriend or wife might be inconsolable in the bathroom, dealing with the reality of what she was told was merely going to be a bad period. This is something that changes everything. Aquila witnessed those abortions in the late ’60s. Here we are over a half-century later, and we’ve become more barbaric — knowing so much more, equipped with so many resources. But we act like this is a normal part of life — to kill the unborn.

What are we doing to help pregnant women be the mothers they already are? How are we walking with them for life? It could be being there for someone in the family when the time comes. It could be being available for a neighbor or a stranger. Do something. Women deserve better than abortion. Children deserve their lives to be protected and cherished.

Around National Review

• Can I admit something to you? Nothing Planned Parenthood does surprises me. They groom kids into needing their services. They have always sought the elimination of certain populations. Thanks be to God, Abigail Anthony is exposing more of their terrorizing of innocence and slouching toward death. She writes: Planned Parenthood Offers Teens Guide to Pro-Abortion Activism, Warns Them to Avoid Pregnancy Centers

• Clarke Forsythe wrote about loving on women. For years, I could say with confidence that the pro-life movement does not want to punish women who have had abortions more than they already are suffering, knowing their baby is no more because of a “choice.” But that’s not always the case today. It’s probably a combination of how unconscionably long we have been living with legal abortion — under Roe, and now in different ways, depending on the states (sort of —you’ve got the likes of New York insisting on exporting death to states like Texas and Louisiana).

Forsythe, author of Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade, is right. I understand the position of Abby Johnson, who is a blessing of a witness, who says that the knowledge of criminal repercussions to abortion would have had an impact on her decisions. But our culture is so cruel. We need more love — telling the truth about life and inundating people with resources for treasuring it at all stages.

• Jack Butler: The U.K. Is Slouching Toward Bioethical Dystopia

• Wesley J. Smith: Will We Care for or Kill Dementia Patients?

• Me: Do Not Kill: The British debate doctor-assisted suicide, even while advocates try to hide what it is.

• Dick Durbin Should Not Be Honored by the Catholic Church in Chicago

• There’s Nothing Gentlemanly About Abortion

Other Things

Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has a memoir coming out in October. In it he says he considered resigning from the Court because he was personally anti-abortion.

He stayed.

When he kept abortion protected in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, he explained to his daughter that he had to “honor the rule of law.” Never mind that Roe was a Court-invented and imposed regime of death.

From Evie, a magazine for young women: I Thought A Baby At 16 Would End My Future. Then I Had Two.

Is Designing Babies Unethical — or a Moral Imperative? The video of a Free Press debate with Carter Snead, Dr. Lydia Dugdale, among others, is here.

Upcoming

• The March for Life will be announcing its 2026 theme on Tuesday afternoon at the National Press Club. Have you made your plans to be at the march in January? Until abortion is no more, we must march.

• St. Louis: The 49th Annual Respect Life Conference is on October 4.

• Will I see you at the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit in Houston in the coming days? (October 1-3)

• Or at the “Leading with Love” conference at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law in Washington? Details here.

• I’ll be speaking in Mexico City in early November — you don’t get much more pro-life than Guadalupe.

For Now, Until Later

I was waiting for an elevator at the Union League Club in Chicago and saw an advertisement for an event that Cardinal Cupich is doing at this same venue where I emceed a pro-life fundraising dinner for Aid for Women last night. So I made an offer on Elon Musk’s platform: If the cardinal will do a pro-life event with me, I’ll do an immigration event with him. We can have an honest conversation about truth and challenges in the public square. If he’s game.

For now, here’s a little sense of the world of Aid for Women. These are the people doing the real pro-life work —mothers and the people who walk with them in love.

Holler anytime at klopez@nationalreview.com. Thank you.