Abortion Change to RNC Platform Creates Rifts on Right
Abortion Change to RNC Platform Creates Rifts on Right
‘I think it’s a mistake to back away from the party’s longtime commitment,’ one lawmaker bluntly put it.
The Republican National Committee finalized its new party platform earlier this week, and it includes some major overhauls of longstanding GOP orthodoxy.
The most important change is related to the document’s framing of the issue of abortion, a major liability for Republicans at the ballot box since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Decades of calls to action and political promises, which have motivated generations of pro-life Republican voters, appear to be fast receding. This year’s platform only mentions the word “abortion” once. It also advocates for a “Vote of the People” at the state level to determine the future of abortion law. That’s a major departure from the longstanding Republican position that the practice should be banned outright at the federal level.
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).
The ad-hoc, writing-the-assignment-on-the-bus-to-school quality you may have detected here—with wanton, almost Trumpian capitalization of random words—is a feature of the whole platform. Other than the bizarre and bizarrely specific commitment to “BUILD A GREAT IRON DOME MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD OVER OUR ENTIRE COUNTRY,” the twenty-point list of promises is vague and open-ended. This is just what someone like Trump wants: It gives the party flexibility to do whatever is expedient while eschewing moral obligations and specific policy goals. In this way, it perfectly encapsulates Trump’s political career.
It’s important to note that the new abortion language doesn’t represent a newfound leniency on the issue. It is instead a naked attempt to clear Trump of any responsibility for the political consequences of the Dobbs decision while still making an appeal to pro-life voters that emphasizes gratitude for that decision, as when they are reminded that Dobbs came about “because of us.”
I caught up with a few of the senators best known for their anti-abortion views, and each offered a unique take on the new platform. The sudden shift on the right-to-life front has many of them upset, although at least one went full Company Man in apparently reneging on his convictions.