Intrinsic Value Forever: Making Every American Great Again
An Open Letter to President Trump
Dear President Trump,
A Legacy Rooted in Family
Just yesterday, after an extraordinary and historic month under your leadership, I was struck by an image—one that spoke volumes beyond policy and politics. You sat at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, a seat of immense power and purpose. Yet what captivated me was not the authority it represented, but the most consequential backdrop: the family pictures standing behind you. Those framed faces—your father, children, grandchildren, the people who know you not as a political force but as a son, father, a grandfather, a man who loves and is loved—tell the real story of what is at stake in the battles we fight.
Walk into any home where love has built a family, and you will see the same thing. Pictures on the walls, mantles adorned with generations past and present—each one a testimony to the sacred, unbroken chain of belonging. These images do more than capture moments; they root us in identity, in meaning, in the knowledge that we come from somewhere and are part of something greater than ourselves.
The Sacred Design of Life
The way life begins is not arbitrary—it is a divine design, an intricate and sacred process by which God breathes forth new life into the world. When we tamper with this design, replacing it with artificial means disconnected from its natural context, we risk far more than we realize. We begin to tread a path where human life is no longer received as a gift but manufactured as a product.
Many of the greatest dystopian visions of literature—Brave New World, 1984, Gattaca—have warned of a future in which human beings are no longer born into love but engineered for function. What kind of world are we paving if we normalize a reality where the origins of life are dictated by human control rather than divine order? Do we understand the consequences of severing the sacred bond between procreation and the family? The wheels we set in motion today will reverberate through culture for generations—are we willing to be accountable for those consequences?
The Scientific and Moral Truth of Human Life
This is why the fight for life, for the dignity of every human being, is not an abstraction. It is personal. As Dr. Maureen Condic, a neuroscientist and associate professor of neurobiology, has stated: "Human life begins at the moment of sperm-egg fusion. This is not a matter of opinion; it is an objective, biological fact." This truth—so foundational, so undeniable—is at the heart of our fight.
As children come of age, they begin to ask fundamental questions: Where did I come from? Who were my ancestors? The desire to understand one’s origins is not mere sentimentality—it is an innate yearning, seen in adopted children searching for their biological families, in young adults poring over family trees, in the sacred bond of kinship passed through generations.
Now imagine a child discovering that they had a dozen siblings—siblings not lost through tragedy, but deliberately discarded through selective choice. The realization raises an existentially searing question: Why me? Why was I chosen to live while my brothers and sisters were not? This is not about abstract ethics—it is about the dignity of the child standing in that moment, reckoning with their own worth.
A child is not a random selection, nor a commodity to be acquired on demand. Every embryo belongs to a family tree. Every human life, no matter how small, is part of an unbroken chain that stretches back through generations, imbued with purpose and dignity. When we reduce life to a transaction—when we create and discard at will—we sever the sacred thread of belonging and undermine the very foundation of what it means to be human.
A Testament to Faith Over Expediency
This truth is not just a principle—it is lived reality. In 1976, my father-in-law came home from the March for Life, having lost the love of his life while she carried their 13th child. With no more than $25,000 a year to provide for his 12 children, he faced an unimaginable choice: to follow expediency or faith. By choosing faith, he held his family together, trusting that what God calls us to, He will provide for. The generations that have come from his decision—faithful, pro-life, and pro-MAGA—proclaim that truth. Among them, our son, Seph Schlueter, whose #1 Billboard song, Counting My Blessings, has touched millions, and is perhaps the heartbeat of this letter.
As Alexis de Tocqueville wisely observed, "America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." The question before us is whether we will continue to uphold that goodness in its most fundamental form—the dignity of human life—or allow convenience and expediency to dictate the boundaries of morality.
Our Enduring Support for You
From the very beginning, we have stood by you, unwavering in our support, undeterred by the relentless media distortions and the storm of opposition that surrounded you. We have defended you boldly, whether on radio programs or across social media, challenging the deceit and narrative-spinning of those who sought to undermine your mission. We have taken the hits gladly because we see ourselves as kindred in this fight for the soul of America.
America is not an abstract ideal—it is a nation comprised of individuals, each imbued with an unrepeatable purpose. To make America great again is to make every American great again, to uphold the dignity of each soul created to live according to the will of their Designer. This is the measure of true greatness.
The Courage to Lead with Integrity
Mr. President, you understand the importance of legacy—of building something that endures, that reflects the strength of those who came before. America is a great nation because we have upheld the truth that human dignity is not granted by preference, nor determined by convenience. The commodification of life is beneath the principles of American greatness; it is an affront to the very legacy that you fight to restore.
As C.S. Lewis wrote, "Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching." America’s greatness depends on our answer. And I believe that answer must be one of unwavering clarity: We do not create children at the cost of destroying others. We do not allow the good intention of helping couples become parents to justify a process that treats human life as disposable. We do not presume to bend eternal truths to fit our circumstances. We hold fast to what is right, even when it is difficult, because we know that what we do here does not simply echo in the temporal sphere—it reverberates through eternity.
A Call to Action: The IVF Worthy of Pursuing
IVF presents itself as a technological triumph, a compassionate response to infertility. But like fire, which can warm a home or consume it, science must be directed toward moral ends. The challenge is whether we will wield it as a means of upholding life or diminishing it.
There are two paths before us: one in which we uphold intrinsic value forever, treating every human being—no matter how small—as sacred; and another in which human life is commodified, reduced to material manipulation, and subjected to human convenience. Consider this: if we manufacture children in laboratories, selecting some while discarding others, are we not presuming to control life itself? History warns us against any system that values human life based on utility rather than its inherent dignity.
The stakes are higher than they seem. And history will remember how we chose to respond.
With you in the most noble pursuit of making every American great again.
MY LATEST BOOK IS HERE!
"Twelve Roses is a poignant and transformative tale that deeply explores themes of faith, love, loss, and the boundless power of God's grace in our messy and often painful lives."
~ Mary Guilfoyle (Acts XXIX)
Are you sending this to Trump? I would encourage you to do that, don’t just say it’s for him.
What I wish would be developed, and it probably has, I just haven’t read it, but no where are people guaranteed to have a child. I understand the longing, the pain deep within ones body to ache and desire to have a child, because I have felt that painful desire. The Lord married Adam and Eve and pronounced it good and urged them to be fruitful. But even in Holy Scripture there were women, who were barren, some for many years, even to old age, like Sarah.
“In each of the stories, the son is ultimately dedicated back to God—in service or even in sacrifice. The paradigm of the Barren Woman in the Hebrew Bible supports the Rabbinic adage that God holds the keys to birth and death (M. Taanit 3:8)—what God gives, God may take back.” (Adelman, Rachel. Jewish Women’s Archive, “Barren Women in the Bible,” 23 June 2021. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/barren-women-in-the bible#:~:text=There%20are%20six%20barren%20women,of%20the%20prophet%20Elisha%20(2) That may not support my point, except I can observe that whenever the barren women took it into their hands to solve the problem by providing their husband with a surrogate wife, it always backfired.
When God charged the first married couple to be fruitful, the accomplishment of this could have happened in many different ways. Let’s look at parenthood. Yes, it could be biological children of the husband and the wife. The child may be adopted, the promising to love and care for another couple’s child, who cannot raise the child themselves, no judgement given. The child could be fostered, temporarily placed with (hopefully) a loving family, not just one in it for the state’s money, to care for a child because the parents are not able to at the moment, and might possibly be returned. Then there are families who are united by blood, such as a grandparent raising a child, or not by blood as by our families of friends, which makes it possible for many of us to survive the families given to us by blood.
Just as we need to have a successful campaign to persuade people that blood doesn’t define family, and we need to come to understand that not every couple will be able to have a biological children. It needs to be easier and not cost the same as the mortgage of a house to adopt a child. And there are plenty of children who desperately need families, if it was accessible and reasonably priced. Would everyone be able to adopt an infant? Only if we cease to murder all the abides in the womb, so no. But there are plenty of toddlers, pre-schools, and teenagers who really, really need a permanent family, not just a family that will “catch and release” them at 18 years of age. How many children are mature enough to navigate the world without a family at 18 years of age? The foster system should at least maintain supervision of children until age 21, and there’s plenty of scientific proof that we’re not truly, biologically in our craniums mature until 25.
And there is the whole realm of spiritual motherhood and fatherhood, exemplified by millions of people in our past, in our modern age, and will be in our future. Schoolteachers, Boy Scout Troop leaders, Sunday School teachers, all of the Saints, pastors, priests, deacons, need I list more? We all have the opportunity to be spiritual parents to someone else, and this is not enough applauded nor discussed. There are so many ways for a person to become a parent that we shouldn’t get hung up on the biological possibility as the only option or choice.
Who can lead the discussion on this: Holy Mother Church. Who can foster a movement to change people’s minds: Holy Mother Church. Who can get the discussion started at our parishes and churches: us. Even more specifically, writers like you and me by emailing and talking to the Religious Education Director and Committee and our pastors at our parishes. Some, like you, have the proven track record of writing and publishing books. The very least that I can do is motivate by my evanagilizing at places like Substack and by writing articles for diocesan newspapers, which I have a small track record of publishing.
We can change the narrative. We can start a grass roots movement to change people’s ideas, while also providing persuasive teaching about the evils and the cruelty of the whole fertility medicine specialty. From the very beginning someone should have asked: just because we can do this, should it be done?
You, my friend, are far too easy to talk to, and are an amazing listener! And back to my original question: are you sending this to Trump? I encourage you to do so.
Peace🕊️