Republicans put abortion disagreements aside at 'unity' convention

BBC ^ | July 2024 | Kayla Epstein & Holly Honderich

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Edna Wales, a Republican delegate from Florida, does not support abortion. As a Roman Catholic, the procedure goes against her moral values. But her policy position, she told the BBC at a street fair at the Republican National Convention, was that it should be left to the states. “I truly feel that,” she said.

Given that outlawing abortion nationwide has been an animating issue for religious Republicans for decades, it was a surprising position to hear at this weeklong gathering. Yet Ms Wales’ stance is the same one that Donald Trump, the party’s nominee for president, now espouses.

Trump’s supporters at the convention in Milwaukee told the BBC they appreciated the pragmatism at play. “I understand how he has to be so careful of how he handles [abortion] because of his run for president,” Ms Wales said.

The former president has boasted of appointing a US Supreme Court bench that overturned the constitutional right to abortion. The 2022 decision upended the landscape of abortion access in the US, with some Republican-led states swiftly outlawing or restricting the procedure while other Democratic-controlled states took steps to protect access.

Internal tensions over the issue spilled into the open with the release of the 2024 Republican Party platform, which outlines its policies and positions on various key issues.

It cut the abortion section from 775 words to 90. The four-sentence pledge promises to stand for life and oppose “late-term abortion”.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

This along with the race card and maybe gun control (?), is what the Democrats are going to milk because…they have nothing.

[southernindymom]

I am so tired of hearing that Republicans are against abortion bc of Row V Wade....... just because we think this is a state issue vs federal issue.......... I argued this with my 85 year old MIL. She is a die hard Dem........

[mellow velo]

They'll be aided and abetted by the usual RINO suspects like Lindsey Graham, et al, going on the Sunday morning talk-show circuit harping on about a national ban on abortion, cutting Social Security, or the like.

The Dem base is demoralized.  No need to risk grasping defeat from the jaws of victory by firing them up.

[Vaduz]

Democrats don’t like the idea of abortion being a state issue because the feds (tax payer) won’t pay for it Murder Inc. is pouring money into the democrat party to get the cash train moving again.

[elpadre]

It is not just the Republicans, SCOTUS has concluded the same. That should end the conversation.

[Seaplaner]

Potential voters are all over the abortion map.

The single best view (appealing to the largest voter bloc) is to state that late term abortion, including post partum infanticide, is obviously wrong and encourage every state to at least ban that.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

ugh agreed! re: Sen Graham.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

well in this age of soundbites, I pray both Trump and Vance be ready to answer for their pov in a succinct and common sense way.

[SkiKnee]

WRT debating this with your 85 yo MIL. Consider the following quote from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg from a speech she gave at University of Chicago Law School May 11th 2013:

"Roe isn’t really about the woman’s choice, is it? It’s about the doctor’s freedom to practice…it wasn’t woman-centered, it was physician-centered.”

I see in her statement the implication that Roe was more about protecting abortion practitioners from lawsuit or State sanction than it was about protecting the rights of women.

[DoughtyOne]

I had a guy approach me saying medical decisions are federal
issues.

I reminded him that each state makes their own rules within a
framework regarding Medicaid.

Never heard from him again.