Aborting Convictions

By: Lisa Van Houten

The issue of abortion has been a dividing line in American politics for over 50 years, since the passage of Roe v. Wade.  The Democrat Party has been rightly labeled the “party of death,” vying for the unlimited “right” to kill the unborn, even up to the moment of birth.  In stark contrast, the Republican Party has been a defender of the personhood and inherent right to life of the unborn. This vast moral distinction between the two parties has led millions of pro-life Americans to stand solidly behind Republican candidates.  This solid pro-life voting block has been essential to the election of countless Republicans, who the voters then expect to uphold the strong, pro-life platform of the GOP.

Yet the Republican Party is now taking steps to betray those long-held pro-life convictions and the pro-life voters who have put them in office.  Yesterday the RNC released its 2024 party platform which drastically weakens the pro-life language and principles on which the Republican Party has stood for decades.  In 2016 and in 2020, the platform stated, in part: “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.”

The former pro-life plank of the Republican platform included seven paragraphs listing specific pro-life positions such as a ban on human cloning, and creating or experimenting upon human embryos, including three-parent embryos; a ban on any sale of body parts; and a ban on the “use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned Parenthood.” All of that has now been stripped from the Republican platform .

The 2024 platform simply states:

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).

Gone is the language affirming the sanctity of life, the acknowledgment that the inalienable right to life comes God, that the unborn have a fundamental right to life.  Also gutted from the platform is any commitment to passing federal pro-life legislation, including support for a human life amendment, which has been in the RNC platform for 40 years.

It’s widely known that the Trump campaign was the driving force behind the change in language, desiring the platform to reflect former President Trump’s current stance that abortion should now be left to the states, with the overturning of Roe.

However, as the 14^th Amendment makes clear, the right to life is a fundamental right.  States (and voters) aren’t free to determine the legality of murder; the same should be true for the murder of the unborn – and that is what pro-life voters and pro-life politicians must continue to fight for.

Millions of pro-life Americans tirelessly fought for the overturning of Roe not merely because the ruling was unconstitutional, but because it was morally wrong.  As previous Republican platforms stated: “the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.”  However, according to their new platform, that truth is something the Republican Party no longer believes.

For millions of voters, the sanctity of life is still the deciding factor in their vote.  A vast majority of them voted for President Trump in the past, hoping that he would fulfill the pro-life promises he made.  To the surprise of many, he did exactly that, becoming the most pro-life president we’ve ever had through executive action and the appointment of judges and justices.  That’s why it’s a kick in the teeth to see him and many fellow Republicans now betray not only the grassroots voters who put them in office, but far more importantly, betraythe unborn.

Senators Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance, two top contenders for vice president to Donald Trump, have also now changed their tune in regards to the life issue.  Senator Rubio, who has been staunchly pro-life, stated in an interview with CNN that he supports the gutting of the pro-life platform, stating, “I think our platform has to reflect our nominee.”  The Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson fired back, “the Republican Party platform should reflect the values of its voters and their enduring political positions. That’s what grassroots means.”

In Rubio’s home state, Florida Republican Chair David Biddle tweeted: “I can’t think of a time when I’ve been more disappointed in an elected official than I am with Marco Rubio.  The Marco I know is unabashedly pro-life, said we would be judged as the most barbaric people in history for what we have done to the unborn. Now this.”

J.D. Vance, in an interview with NBC, also came out in favor of the abortion drug Mifepristone, echoing Donald Trump’s support for access to the abortion-inducing pill.  This do-it-yourself abortion drug now accounts for more than 50% of abortions in the U.S. and, through the sale across state lines, makes every state an abortion state.  The results are devastating.

It’s naïve to think that most Republican politicians, including Donald Trump, are principled social conservatives on moral issues such as the right to life.  They’re pragmatists who see abortion as a losing issue with today’s electorate. However, we can’t reduce abortion to just a political issue; it’s not morally neutral .  As theologian Albert Mohler stated: “We cannot possibly use that as justification to hold to a policy position we believe violates our deepest convictions. The threat of not winning an election cannot justify assuming an immoral position.”

As Republican politicians seek to appeal to pro-abortion voters by watering down their pro-life principles, they are in great danger of losing millions of loyal voters.

In addition to gutting the pro-life plank, the Republican platform also strips opposition to homosexual “marriage.”  The former platform stated: “Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. …. We also condemn the Supreme Court’s lawless ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges [which allowed] five unelected lawyers [to rob] 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

And even though a Gallup poll shows that an increased number of Americans see homosexual relationships as immoral, the 2024 platform now simply states: “Republicans will promote a Culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage.” And as LifeSite News reports, the GOP platform “drops the condemnation of Obergefell and any discussion of homosexual ‘marriage’ at all, and while it preserves opposition to men in women’s sports and taxpayer funding and promotion of ‘gender transitions,’ it reportedly ‘stops short of seeking to bar parents from seeking medical treatment [i.e., ‘sex changes’] for minor children.’”

The Democrat Party has long promoted the murder of the most innocent among us, while also advocating for the sexual perversion that in exploding in our culture.  The Republican Party, up until now, has held the moral high ground on the sanctity of life and marriage.  As the GOP abandons those foundational principles, they may also find that voters will abandon them.

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