Posted on 04/25/2016 8:59:15 AM PDT by Morgana
The chairman of the GOP says Donald Trump will not likely be successful in his effort to change the Republican Party platform to support abortions in cases of rape or incest.
As LifeNews.com reported last week, Trump said he “absolutely” wants to change the Republican party’s current pro-life platform to promote abortions in cases of rape or incest.
“Yes I would. Absolutely, for the three exceptions, I would,” he said. Trump was then pressed further and asked if he would make an exception to protect the “health” of the mother. “I would leave it for the life of the mother, but I would absolutely have the three exceptions.”
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Now, Republican chairman Reince Priebus says the pro-life platform will likely stay as is.
On Sunday, Priebus was asked on ABC’s “This Week” whether he would be open to making those changes.
“Well, the platform is up to the delegates at the convention,” Priebus said. “If that’s what Donald Trump is intending, then he needs to make sure that the people that agree with him are the people that are getting elected to the platform committee.”
Priebus continued, “I think our platform is pretty clear on those subjects. Life begins at conception, and that 14th Amendment rights apply to unborn children.”
“And I would suspect that that is what the platform is going to say after Cleveland,” he concluded.
Leading pro-life advocates have condemned Trump’s call for abortion int he GOP platform.“The suggestion that the platform should weaken its position on the pro-life issue would set back years of hard work in the pro-life movement,” said Tom McClusky, vice president of March for Life Action.
At the same time, Trump has not toned down his praise of Planned Parenthood, which he says “has done very good work for many, many — for millions of women” despite the fact that the group is reviled by pro-life advocates as “a seller of baby body parts.”
“He says ‘I’m pro-life, abortion is wrong’ and I’m not sure that he has taken it beyond that,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, which has endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz. “People who have been involved in the pro-life movement — in the politics, in the culture, for anywhere from one month to 40 plus years — are very well immersed in the language, the issues and I think they just see his lack of ability to talk about the issue as a problem.”
As LifeNews reported yesterday, Lila Rose, president and founder of the pro-life organization Live Action, told LifeNews.com she takes issue with Trump on supporting the aborting of babies not conceived lovingly.
“Rape and incest are horrific injustices, and those who commit these acts should always be punished to the full extent of the law. U.S. law forbids the use of the death penalty as a punishment for rapists, yet current law permits killing the innocent preborn children conceived in rape. Abortion should not be held up as a pathway to healing from rape or incest, as it doesn’t undo the crime; it just adds more violence to what the survivor has already endured,” Rose explained.
Rose continued: “If you are pro-life, you can’t say certain lives are less worthy or don’t deserve protection because of how they are conceived. To say children conceived in rape are somehow less human and shouldn’t be allowed to live is a grave injustice. Survivors of rape and incest and their children must be shown compassion and be supported by their communities. While some mothers choose to keep their children, adoption is the option for those who don’t.”
“Over 1000 medical professionals from around the world have publicly declared that abortion is never medically necessary to save a mother’s life. While life-saving medical treatment may result in the death of the child in a mother’s womb, there is a fundamental difference between providing that legitimate treatment and elective abortion,” she concluded.
Trump’s platform comment is the latest in a long line of comments from Trump upsetting pro-life voters — including multiple remarks praising the Planned Parenthood abortion business, saying abortion laws should not be changed and saying women should be punished for having abortions and flip-flopping hours later.
Below is the full text of the current pro-life platform in the Republican Party:
THE SANCTITY AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE
Faithful to the “self-evident” truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment, including food and water, from people with disabilities, including newborns, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose active and passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Republican leadership has led the effort to prohibit the barbaric practice of partial birth abortion, permitted States to extend health care coverage to children before birth. We urge Congress to strengthen the Born Alive Infant Protection Act by exacting appropriate civil and criminal penalties to health care providers who fail to provide treatment and care to an infant who survives and abortion, including early induction delivery where the death of the infant is intended. We call for legislation to ban sex-selective abortions – gender discrimination in its most lethal form – and to protect from abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain; and we applaud U.S. House Republicans for leading the effort to protect the lives of pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia. We call for a revision of federal law 42 U.S.C. 289.92 to bar the use of body parts from aborted fetuses for research. We support and applaud adult stem cell research to develop lifesaving therapies, and we oppose the killing of embryos for their stem cells. We oppose federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
We also salute the many states that have passed laws for informed consent, mandatory waiting periods prior to an abortion, and health protective clinic regulation. We seek to protect young girls from exploitation through a parental consent requirement; and we affirm our moral obligation to assist, rather than penalize, women challenged by an unplanned pregnancy. We salute those who provide them with counseling and adoption alternatives and empower them to choose live, and we take comfort in the tremendous increase in adoptions that has followed Republican legislative initiatives.
James Bopp, Co-chairman of the Subcommittee on Restoring Constitutional Government for the Republican National Committee, emailed LifeNews the background of the pro-life position:
Since 1980, the Republican Party Platform has endorsed the adoption of “a Human Life Amendment” to protect unborn life and to reverse Roe v. Wade. Carl Anderson, now head of the Knights of Columbus of the U.S., and I drafted this plank, and it has remained the same and in the platform since then. In addition, I was Co-Chairman of the Subcommittee on Restoring Constitutional Government of the Platform Committee which readopted this platform plank this year.
In 1980, there were dozens of different versions of a Human Life Amendment then pending in Congress. The approaches included a state’s rights version, one reversing the right to abortion, one endorsing restoring personhood, one permitting abortion only to save the life of the mother and some allowing abortion in instances of rape and incest.
The Republican Party plank endorsing a Human Life Amendment does not take a position on which version of a Human Life Amendment should eventually be adopted. We leave that decision to Congress and the people of the United States at that time. Thus, we do not take a position on which exceptions should be included in a Human Life Amendment.
On the other hand, the Democratic National Committee has officially rejected an effort by pro-life Democrats to get the party to include them in its platform that calls for keeping unlimited abortions legal and paid for at taxpayer expense.
Only person who should get the death penalty in the case of rape/incest is the rapist not an innocent baby.
Trump if you want to be my president they say you will end abortion in America and shut down Planned Parenthood along with all other things you have promised.
Perhaps Donald will have better luck changing the Republican Platform to include males in female restrooms?
tell that to the parents of a 12 year old little girl who got gang raped on her way home from school
Just what I said, I’m sure her parents would agree. All the men who raped her should get the death penalty. We have gotten soft on criminals in this country. Don’t you agree?
Careful. Anti-Trump postings are dangerous.
See the tagline.
This is not anti Trump, this is Pro life. As I recall this is a pro life site.
It's a plank to troll for voters, not a policy. A policy is something you adhere to and enforce.
We have to do this on a state by state, clinic by clinic thing I know. Still it would help to have the support of a pro life president behind us.
You are mistaken. As of April 23, that is no longer a hard and fast.
Abortion and men following little girls to the toilet are perfectly acceptable positions on FR, just as long as they further the stated prime directive. You see, sometimes you have to see the larger picture and suppress your own morality for the common good.
Other Constitutional issues will be determined to be relevant or irrelevant on a day-to-day basis going forward. Silence will keep you free.
“Trump if you want to be my president they say you will end abortion in America”
Unfortunately, Trump will be in the same boat right along Reagan and the two Bushes or any other president, he can’t.
It will take an amendment to the Constitution.
This is a bogus issue.
You can insist on Cruz and lose the general and save 0% of the abortions.
Or you can go with Trump and win the general and save 99% of the abortions. Then fight for the remaining 1%.
Of course what’s 1,000,000 kids lives when you’re standing on principle.
Instead of a thoroughly traumatic act that will ruin her life at the hands of a violent criminal the absolutists here will guarantee the ruin of the rest of her life at their own hands.
Or I can insist that who ever wins, Trump or Cruz put an end to Abortion in America.
Who ever wins works for us and don’t ever forget that.
That works, but they are more likely to pass something with exceptions than without. So sometimes you have to do what you can and fight again another day.
If there was any compromise to be had, I could not see forcing a woman victims of rape or incest to carry a child to term if they don’t want to.
But in this day and age why is this even necessary? you need only give them a pill the day after
as for regular abortions- Some day scientists will find out what causes pregnancy and how to prevent it...before you have to murder a baby
A friend from college was the product of rape. Her mom was 13. She was in college on a full ride for her brains, which luckily were not sucked out of her skull before she was born. In her experience (she communicates with others like her) products of rape, i.e. children, actually help the victim heal. Those who abort have more long term effects and later on have to heal emotionally from the abortion.
When presidential candidate Donald J Trump began his campaign .He used his experience as a showman with the WWF because this is the wayTrump views this contest..Not as an exchange of values and core principles and most importantly have participants explain what they viewed as issues and how they would address them.
But as a debate on personality Marketing a product based on personality, hustling some soft soap opera with him as the - watch me not them- lead actor.In doing so reduced those so called debates to the consistancy of a WWF wrestling match. What was missing was when challanged DT did not pick up a chair and toss it.
The entertainment impressario and international resort properties developer D.J. Trump demonstrated how he views the political scene. In fact he has boasted how he has bought and sold politicians . When he later suggests Cruz is buying off delegates. It is because he initially believes that is what is happening but knows better and continues these baseless charges because it is politcally effective . Cruz simply does not have that kind of money. But through Trump supporters makes those unfounded assertions because they can’t believe that lying Pastor Ted Cruz who cites rescinding presidential order 13672 which co-opts religious values and is offering is what he sees are conservative directions the government must take is out of personal concern and conviction .
It should surprize no one by Trumps recent change in direction in which he now supports an open door policy on bathrooms, supports planned parenthood, and demands changes in the abortion position taken by the GOP. He signalled the direction he would take in the Iowa campaign when he supported mandated ethanol.
I am not sure why some people can’t see that there are limits to things that should be litigated. Especially when they call themselves “Conservative.”
If you are 100% Pro Life, then you must believe that contraception of any kind should be illegal. Also, any kind of fertility procedure that involves fertilization outside the womb also must be illegal.
So are you 100% pro life? I think not. Now the exception for rape, incest or the life of the mother means that the State will refrain from interfering with these difficult decisions. You want the State to be involved in as little as possible don’t you? That is part of what being a “Conservative” means.
Some rape victims view the child as a blessing; the people of modern day Jordan, i.e. Moabites and Ammonnites, are the product of incest when Lot’s daughters got him drunk and raped him, so that was a two-fer; some mothers are willing to die in order to give birth. The point here is that why should the State be involved in these decisions?
Now, about your demands to Donald Trump. He has already said he will cutoff Federal funding of Planned Parenthood as long as they are doing abortions. He has said he will appoint conservative Justices to the Supreme Court in the mold of Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia. What more do you want?
Donald Trump is the only candidate who has a chance of changing anything that is going on in Washington because he is the only one who not only hasn’t been bought, but who can’t be bought or intimidated. That single fact, coupled with his 30 year record of being a nice person to the people around him, and writing books about the America we Deserve, where he outlines a pretty conservative, but more importantly, corruption-free America, make him the only choice that makes any sense.
well that AND the new poll today that has Trump in a statistical dead heat with Clinton.. good post!
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