Posted on 07/08/2024 1:39:40 PM PDT by Morgana
The 2024 Republican National Convention‘s Platform Committee has adopted former President Donald Trump’s GOP platform, the Trump campaign announced on Monday, including new language on abortion and the protection of the unborn.
That new platform’s abortion language is a significant departure from the party’s life messaging in 2016, since it no longer calls for federal protections for unborn babies and instead suggests that the matter is up to the states. The 2016 platform included the word “abortion” 35 times, while the 2024 platform merely includes abortion once.
The new language, under the subhead, “Republicans Will Protect and Defend a Vote of the People, from within the States, on the Issue of Life,” reads:
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).
Conservatives and pro-life activists received the draft language with mixed feelings.
Trump’s attention to the pro-life movement has previously caused him to be heralded as the most pro-life president in American history, with the lasting legacy of appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade.
Trump also made history as the first president to attend the national March for Life in person, for appointing a slew of pro-life federal judges throughout his four years as president, for signing an executive order protecting infants born alive through botched abortions, and for significantly cutting Planned Parenthood’s federal funding.
According to polling released Monday by WPA Opinion Research, 62% of Republican voters said that the Republican Party platform position on life, the family, and religious liberty would affect their vote, the Washington Stand reported. Thirty-seven percent of those polled said it would impact their vote “a lot,” while 25% said it would impact the vote “just some.”
In the 2016 RNC platform, which was recycled in 2020, Republicans had emphasized the “Constitution’s guarantee that no one can ‘be deprived of life, liberty or property’” and said that this “deliberately echoes the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that ‘all’ are ‘endowed by their Creator’ with the inalienable right to life.”
Then-President Donald Trump speaks at the 47th March For Life rally on the National Mall on Jan. 24, 2019, in Washington. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
“Accordingly, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,” the 2016 platform said. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”
It continued:
We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide health care.
We urge all states and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts.
In the meantime, we call on Congress to ban the practice of misleading women on so-called fetal-harvesting consent forms, a fact revealed by a 2015 investigation. We will not fund or subsidize health care that includes abortion coverage.
Pro-life organizations appeared to cautiously celebrate the new draft GOP abortion stance in statements issued Monday.
SBA Pro-Life America said that it is “important that the GOP reaffirmed its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment.”
“Under this amendment, it is Congress that enacts and enforces its provisions. The Republican Party remains strongly pro-life at the national level,” the organization’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in a statement. “The mission of the pro-life movement, for the next six months, must be to defeat the Biden-Harris extreme abortion agenda.”
“The platform allows us to provide the winning message to 10 million voters, with four million visits at the door in key battleground states,” she added. “We are educating voters on the Biden-Harris promotion of abortion for any reason even in the seventh, eighth, or ninth month. We contrast that with protecting the states’ ability to create consensus pro-life laws and provide compassionate options for women and children.”
Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins issued a similar statement, highlighting enthusiasm for the GOP platform’s mention of the 14th Amendment while mentioning a “new deal” with Trump.
“From the day that Roe v. Wade’s corrupt legacy came to an end, the Pro-Life Generation has called for acknowledgment that the 14th Amendment protects all lives—in and out of the womb,” Hawkins said. “The most significant contribution that the GOP platform makes for LIFE comes in celebrating the fact that the 14th Amendment ‘guarantees’ legal protection for the preborn.”
“While it’s true that state legislators are now welcomed into this fight for life, the end of Roe actually means that all our elected leaders—local, state, and federal—can now engage on the human rights issue of the day,” she added. “Next up: We are still waiting for President Trump’s new deal with the Pro-Life movement, but given the state focus of this platform, we are asking President Trump to call for Republican voters to reject the extreme, late-term abortion ballot initiatives across the country, beginning in Florida where he visits tomorrow.”
"... the 2016 platform said. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.” ..."
Oh this is awful
I do not support IVF as normally practiced. It’s like “we opposed killing older babies but support killing littler ones.”
Abysmal.
Doesn’t this just make it a state issue? That’s pretty much what the Supreme Court said it was, no?
Read the article again...
“
We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like
Planned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide health care.
We urge all states and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts.
In the meantime, we call on Congress to ban the practice of misleading women on so-called fetal-harvesting consent forms, a fact revealed by a 2015 investigation. We will not fund or subsidize health care that includes abortion coverage.”
Selling baby parts is a federal crime not a state one. Yes I can see the GOP should be keeping on top of this. PLEASE keep on top of this you know PP is still doing this shit.
There are other things too like abortion trafficking. that is a FEDERAL crime not state.
bkmk
I understand all the fetal trafficking stuff is federal. Same with any organs.
I’m talking abortion restrictions. I understand that all to be a state issue.
Here comes the rinopublicans snatching defeat from victory! That’s our battle cry. Meanwhile, pro-lifers are being thrown into prison and getting their doors kicked in. What does the old platform say about that? What have the rinopublicans done for pro-lifers before Trump, fundraise off them?
Pro Lifers need to vote these people out
Pro lifers are losing at the ballot box in Kansas, Ohio. If you want your platform you have to be a strong voting block. You can’t just force the party to lose every election. Sorry. There needs to be some level of strategy employed
Otherwise they’ll be wishing Roe was the law inside of a generation.
Yep.
It can’t just be a person when it’s convenient for mommy.
Further we need to get rid of the special protected class of person that is legally allowed to murder another person for any reason.
We need to drop abortion as an item on the Republican platform. Just don’t mention it any longer.
The proposed language is effectively neutral on abortion while the Democrat platform remains 100% pro-death. This is an issue of good versus evil. If the Republican Party betrays its pro-life voters and the defense of innocent life is removed from the platform, it will deserve to lose. It would be like the Republican platform of 1860 going neutral on slavery.
++
Agreed! Abortion goes away when we are a Christian/moral nation again. This is just being used by GOP/DNC to attempt to sabotage Trump on an issue that Trump did more on than the entire republican party in 50 years.
Whether state or federal, they should at least be clear where they individually stand on abortion, and under what conditions.
That is the entire point. If the republicans try to pass a federal abortion ban it would just be as unconstitutional as Row.
We relied on the tenth amendment argument to reverse Row, if we now pass a federal ban it would make us all complete and utter hypocrites.
I prefer the dems retain that title.
Republicans arguing for a federal ban like Lindsey Graham are not on our side. Just like dems they are unwilling to put in the hard work changing harts and minds at the state level.
Just like dems they would usurp the US constitution and impose their policy preference by federal force.
I'm sick of living under that yoke.
Well many Americans are lost souls and embrace their sinful lifestyles so trying to ramrod it doesn’t their throats will get you beat..I see that and really about all that can be done till Americans repent.
Im pro life. The goal, in my view, is maximizing the preservation of lives. In order to do that, putting the issue to the states makes the most sense even if I wish it weren’t done anywhere. Sure, trying to ban it nationally would be more ideologically pure but the end result would end up causing more abortion in the long run.
Trump’s platform is great.
No mention of Linda here. That’s good.
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