For the last ten Republican National conventions, covering a span of 40 years, the party platform has included a plank opposing abortion. Not this time.
Here is what the 2024 Republican Party Platform says on the subject:
4. Republicans Will Protect and Defend a Vote of the People, from within the States, on the Issue of Life
We proudly stand for families and Life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights. After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People. We will oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).
Catholic columnist Kenneth Craycraft says, in an article with this title, For the First Time, Neither Party Is Pro-Life.
The 2024 Republican Party platform confirms that neither major national political party — nor their respective presidential candidates — is pro-life. In the sole place the Republican platform does discuss abortion, it is incoherent mumbo jumbo. Abandoning the issue to state legislatures, the platform displays alarming ignorance of the meaning and purpose of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. And it expressly endorses procedures that always lead to the destruction of prenatal life. . . .
In its attempt to distinguish itself from the Democrats, the Republican platform proclaims, “We proudly stand for families and Life.” (All quotations preserve the helter-skelter capitalization of the platform.) But as a statement of principles, the platform is certainly not pro-life. Let’s not mince words: under the influence of Donald Trump, the national Republican party has abandoned its pro-life, anti-abortion principles, and has embraced the moral legitimacy of widespread destruction of unborn human life.
The plank, in effect, “abandons moral opposition to abortion, reducing it to mere policy choices in the states.”
Here is the take of conservative thinker Robert George, writing on Facebook:
Every four years since 1984, socially liberal Republicans, such as the late Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, have sought to remove from the Republican Party platform its plank committing the Party to work for national legislation protecting the constitutional right of unborn children to the equal protection of the laws. The pro-life movement successfully protected the plank every time, fighting off efforts to remove or weaken it, thus ensuring that the Republicans remained a pro-life party.
Donald Trump has now, however, succeeded where liberal Republicans of the past failed. He has made Arlen Specter’s dream a reality. The plank has been removed from the Republican platform. It has been replaced by the claim that abortion policy is entirely the business of states who may, if they wish, permit abortion up to birth.
There is a promise to “oppose late-term abortion” (undefined), though not by federal law, and an incoherent reference to the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment as permitting states (not the federal government) to legislate against abortion. (The relevant clause of the 14th Amendment is actually the Equal Protection Clause–which goes unmentioned–and the 14th Amendment expressly authorizes Congress, not the states, to enforce its substantive guarantees.)
What a mess. And then the new platform pledges to protect–presumably by federal law–IVF and contraception.
It is true that the thoroughly transactional Donald Trump appointed justices who provided the votes necessary to overturn Roe v. Wade. He kept his bargain with the pro-life movement on that one. But now Mr. Trump sees our cause–the protection of unborn children–as a political liability. He knows that seriously pro-life people cannot in conscience vote for Joe Biden and the Democrats, so he has no reason not to throw the pro-life cause under the bus. And, predictably, that is what he had now done.”
Pro-life leaders have no leverage, and so will be tempted to go along with this without public complaint in order to retain some standing and influence in the future Trump administration. They may even claim that it is somehow a victory. In truth, it’s the opposite of that.
So if neither party is pro-life, does that mean that pro-life Christians might just as well vote for the Democrats? I know of quite a few pro-lifers who are liberals in their economic and political beliefs but who have been voting for the Republicans just because they rightly see opposition to abortion as their major priority. If Republicans are not going to oppose abortion either, they may well feel free to release their inner liberal.
But Republicans are still more pro-life by far than the Democrats. The Republican platform would let the states decide, but that leaves room for some states to ban abortion, as some have. The Democrats are campaigning for the national legalization of abortion on demand, which would involve nullifying the laws of states that have banned or restricted abortion. The Republican position, as of now at least, would allow for pro-life laws; the Democratic position would not.
Besides, many Republican lawmakers and officials are still pro-life, despite what their standard bearer has decreed for the platform to say. They still deserve support from pro-lifers. This is especially true on the state level, where, for better or worse, the battles for life will be waged.
George is right, though, that the Republican Party as a whole has thrown pro-lifers under the bus and that pro-lifers have lost their leverage. And that they have nowhere else to go.
Perhaps they could regain some of that clout as they work on the state level, where the battle will be joined, withholding their support from pro-abortion Republicans and waiting to be wooed by candidates of any party who will give support to their cause. With such grass roots activism, they may be able to work their way up the party hierarchies and regain some political influence.
Photo: Photo by Philip Cohen via Flickr, CC by SA 2.0
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