Women on the right routinely have to explain that one can be a Republican without accepting sexual assault as just “boys being boys.” We have to defend ourselves for wanting to belong to a party that contains people who preemptively disparage the stories of women whose lives appear to have been made a living nightmare by the predation of older men.

Those of us conservative women who are pro-life and pro-family face yet another obstacle: We have to explain that opposing abortion isn’t actually an assault on women’s rights. We have to find a way to make the case against abortion and in favor of marriage and family, in the face of substantial cultural opposition, even as fellow conservatives rush to embrace Trump and Moore as champions of the pro-life, pro-family cause.

Of course, part of the blame goes to disingenuous feminists and leftists who take every opportunity to discredit conservatism and its female constituents. But conservatives who attempt to defend Trump and Moore as moral and upstanding men contribute enormously to the problem.