GOP Not Worried About Angry Pro-Lifers, They Don't Have "Much of an Option"
/“Where else will your people go?” That is what an evangelical leader on the platform committee was told during the fight to soften its anti-abortion stance.
When delegates arrived to vote on the 2024 GOP Platform, the press was barred from covering the hush-hush procedures; not even cell phones were allowed. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, called the process “choreographed” and said it “allowed no amendments to be discussed or voted upon.” Travis Webber from the same organization said it was “rammed down the throats of everyone there today.”
Gayle Ruzicka, a Republican National Committee platform member from Utah, said there were no subcommittees, no amendments, and no discussion. “They rolled us,” she explained, after noting that delegates spent thousands of dollars to be there. “I’ve never seen this happen before. I don’t understand why they did it, and I’m extremely disappointed that we do not have any pro-life language.” Though there were many things in the platform Ruzicka approved, she wouldn’t vote for it herself. “I’ve been coming to the convention since 1992, and this is the first time we don’t have a pro-life platform.”
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is hoping to be former President Donald Trump’s vice president, was asked by CNN’s Dana Bash if he was worried the new changes to the GOP platform would depress enthusiasm for Donald Trump among anti-abortion grassroots voters. “Not really, because I don’t think there’s much of an option here.” Rubio also told Bash that he agreed with changing the platform because it “has to reflect the nominee.”
“Reflecting the nominee” instead of aspiring to do what is just and moral is what’s frightening evangelicals. An even more jarring interview was with Ohio Senator JD Vance, another potential VP. He went on Meet the Press and offered his support of the Supreme Court’s decision to allow abortion pill access, which kills two-thirds of our sons and daughters via abortion. Trump has vowed not to block access to this lethal drug.
A major criticism from within the Right regarding Trump was a concern that he would pull the party to the Left. But Trump openly courted the evangelical vote, and he alleviated many fears within his first term by selecting the Federalist Society’s judicial picks, attending the March for Life, delivering speeches that affirmed the dignity of the unborn, and so on. But Trump began to sour on the anti-abortion view after the midterm elections, yet the evangelical voters in Iowa overwhelmingly supported Trump in the primary, destroying the hopes of any opposition.
The new platform reads like a Trump campaign email, with a list of 20 priorities in all caps—none of them is about protecting the unborn. On the second to the last page of the platform, one paragraph 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).
This is incoherent. If you’re going to invoke the 14th Amendment, then it’s not a states’ rights issue. The relevant part of the 14th says, “Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.” Trump’s platform ignores “equal protection.” The new platform reads like, “States can follow the Constitution…if they want to.”
The 2024 platform opposes late-term abortions, but it technically supports a state’s right to choose late-term abortions. Focusing on late-term abortion also undermines the idea that the same child deserves equal protection as an embryo in their mother’s womb. The affirmation of IVF obliterates the concept that we are endowed with an unalienable right to life at conception.
The 2016 platform certainly had more than a few sentences dedicated to affirming life, but here’s the first paragraph:
The Constitution’s guarantee that no one can “be deprived of life, liberty or property” deliberately echoes the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that “all” are “endowed by their Creator” with the inalienable right to life. Accordingly, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. 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.
Some pro-life organizations have signed onto the platform. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America claimed, “The Republican Party remains strongly pro-life at the national level.”
Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life, claimed “The GOP Platform acknowledging that the 14th Amendment protects preborn children was a big win.” But Hawkins also chastised Trump’s belief that abortion isn’t a federal issue.
Founder of Live Action Lila Rose called the platform a “significant downgrade” and “harmful to preborn American children.”
Joel Berry, the Managing Editor of The Babylon Bee, believes changing the platform means “they’re over as a political party.”
Seth Gruber, CEO of the White Rose Resistance, also voiced concern. “A ‘conservative’ party that does not prioritize the total abolition of abortion as its highest political priority will one day wake up and find that there is nothing left to conserve.”
Though many of these groups are dissatisfied, many are still content with voting for Trump over Biden, seeing Trump as the lesser of two evils. However, many evangelicals are opting to not support “evil” at all.
Pastor Mike Stone, an influential pastor in the largest Protestant denomination in the US, will not be casting a ballot for Trump. “I have repeatedly stated, for years, that I wouldn’t vote for any politician who supports killing unborn children. Not even a dog catcher. I have ZERO intention to start in 2024.” The Southern Baptist Association also came out against support of IVF earlier this year.
Popular Christian conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey is worried the Republicans are dooming themselves by compromising. “Abortion is the biggest reason evangelicals vote Republican. Without it, like it or not, many can be persuaded to vote Dem or Independent or not vote at all.”
The reasoning behind evangelicals supporting Donald Trump was that even if he had moral failings and sent too many mean tweets, they could still focus on the policies. But Trump has now compromised on an absolutely fundamental human right and abandoned his duty to “secure” the unalienable right to life. Like us, the preborn are image bearers of God, our neighbors who we are called to love as we love ourselves. If Trump can change a 40-year tradition and convince Senator JD Vance to defend abortion access, then evangelicals are questioning what other policies will be thrown away. Even when pro-life objectives were achieved in Arizona or Florida, Trump has vocally condemned them.
There is an intense game of chicken between the Trump campaign and evangelicals. Trump is now courting moderates while expecting his base to remain faithful like the Prophet Hosea. Evangelicals who don’t want to legitimize bad behavior and reward a betrayal of this magnitude, risk their protest resulting in a Biden victory.
If the platform supports a state’s right to choose abortion, the platform is pro-choice. Now, a debate is raging between evangelicals who are willing to compromise their principles to achieve victory and evangelicals who are willing to prove Republicans can’t take advantage of them and expect to take the White House.
