America Says It Protects Children. The Reality Tells a Different Story.

America loves to say it cares about children. “Family values”, “protecting the innocent,” and “defending life” are the battle cries of many of the elections. But after the election, you have to look at how this country actually treats living, breathing children. Not the unborn, not the symbolic idea of a child, but real kids in real situations. That is when the truth becomes unavoidable. Children in America are not a priority; they are just something to use to get elected and then put out of mind when the election is over. Children are actually the people who survive some of the worst kinds of abuse and are treated as if they barely exist.  

You can see the contradiction everywhere. The fetus is talked about like it is sacred, but once it becomes a child, the urgency disappears. The family the politician claims is so important is left to figure everything out alone. Survivors of child sexual assault are ignored or disbelieved. In fact, they become invisible. Trafficked children fall through the cracks like they never existed. The people and politicians with the power to fix any of this rarely face the consequences for failing to act. The plain truth is, we keep rewarding many of these people by re-electing them into office so they can continue to ignore the needs of children in this country. Why does this happen over and over again? It really isn’t because Americans don’t care about kids. Children don’t have any political power to hold those in office responsible. They can’t vote, they can’t donate money, and they can’t punish the politicians who talk about children and family values but then turn their backs when they get to Washington.

When a political system is driven by power, the powerless get ignored every time. That is why the same failures repeat and get worse. Families can’t afford childcare. We have parents working themselves into the ground, but continue to fall behind. We have survivors of sexual abuse begging for justice, as the Epstein survivors have had to do. Trafficked children are treated like case files and statistics instead of human beings. When the support systems collapse, the safety net tears wider and wider. One really good example came when the president got mad at the Catholic Church because the Pope came out against war. The president ended all federal contracts with Catholic Charities, which had long provided housing, trauma care, and family unification services for unaccompanied migrant children. Catholic Charities was one of the largest and, more importantly, experienced organizations serving vulnerable kids, including children fleeing from violence, trafficking, or exploitation. The cutting of those contracts had immediate consequences: fewer beds, fewer trained staff, and fewer safe placements for children who have already survived unimaginable harm. This isn’t about ideology. It‘s about outcomes. When support systems lose their funding, it is the children who pay the price.

I know people ask which political side is the most responsible for blocking policies that could actually help children and survivors. The finger always points in multiple directions, but this isn’t a matter of opinion. It’s a matter of public record. Analysts and journalists have documented that one party has repeatedly voted against support for children and families. One party has constantly voted against expanding and keeping programs that keep children and families safe, including childcare, paid leave, healthcare access, and anti-poverty programs. That is not a partisan attack; that is what the legislative history shows. The problem goes beyond party labels. It’s about a system that treats pregnancy as a moral symbol but treats motherhood as a private burden. It is a system that talks like they protect and defends the innocence, but looks the other way when it is the powerful who exploit children, as we have witnessed with the Epstein scandal. We are a country that praises “life” but refuses to invest in the lives already here.

As for the people who take the Bible seriously, this should be a wake-up call, but it isn’t. Scripture doesn't say “protect the fetus and ignore the child.” It says protect the vulnerable. Defend the oppressed. Care for widows and orphans. Shelter the abused. Hold the powerful accountable. Survivors of child sexual abuse are exactly the people the Bible commands us to protect. The Epstein Scandal is where hundreds of children have been sexually abused, and maybe even worse, this is one of the biggest cover-ups in the history of our nation. That cover-up extends from the Presidency down through the Department of Justice, all the way into Congress. Not a single one of the powerful has been held accountable. No matter what many of the Bible-thumping politicians say while they campaign, they never intend to give the child the support or the justice that they should receive.

Can we fix this? Yes, but we have to stop pretending that slogans are solutions. Children don’t need more speeches; they need solutions. Survivors don’t need thought as prayers; they need justice and accountability. Families don’t need more lectures about personal responsibility; they need actual support, including the kind of support Catholic Charities once provided before our President had a hissy fit and ended the contract. Families need affordable childcare so parents aren’t forced into impossible choices that may actually harm the child. WE need family leave so newborns and mothers aren’t thrown into crisis. We need healthcare access so trauma gets treated instead of ignored. We need stronger laws so abusers can’t hide behind technicalities and their money. We need real oversight so trafficking networks no longer can operate in the shadows. We need stable funding for organizations and law enforcement so they can properly protect our vulnerable children.  These should not be thought of as right-wing or left-wing ideas. They should be thought of as basic Ideas for the protection of our children in any decent society.

A country that truly values life would protect its kids after they are born. It would support families before they break and have services to help them if they do. They would believe the survivors and not vote the abusers into powerful offices. It would punish those abusers, no matter how wealthy or well-connected they are. They would stop treating the fetus as more important than the living child. Why? Because Jesus told us that is what we are supposed to do.    

America could be that country that does it right. But only if we stop treating “life” as a slogan and start treating it as the responsibility that it should be. Remember, slogans are not solutions, and many times they are just lies to hide the truth.