Life Advocacy Briefing

What Is All the Fuss About?

Direct Quote from 2024 Proposed Republican National Platform, Section 4 of Chapter 9 (of 10 “chapters”)

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 14^th 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).

Fundamental Error

WITH PROFOUND DISAPPOINTMENT WE READ of the Republican Convention Platform Committee’s pulverizing of the party’s enunciation of firm and detailed support for the right to Life as a matter of policy for the sake of law – standing in its current form since 2016 but even then reflecting decades of dedication to principle. Indeed, in view of the Republican Party’s roots as the party of Abraham Lincoln, we expect millions of the party’s members to put the platform committee’s betrayal into the dustbin, where it promptly belongs, while focusing instead on the fanatical death dream of their opposition as demonstrated every day by the current Regime in Washington and too many state capitals.

When the Supreme Court, in the 2022 Dobbs decision, conferred on states and their citizens the seeming privilege of legislating protections for the most vulnerable of Americans, the high court did not excuse the federal government from taking whatever actions are necessary to protect and undergird the right to Life which dreamers throughout the world recognize as foundational to the American system and the American spirit.

The 2024 GOP Platform Committee’s product reminds us of Pontius Pilate’s desperate washing of his hands, when loyalty to truth would be a far better course.  

This Life Advocacy Briefing will be devoted to various responses to this misstep by the GOP at the opening of its national convention. Other news, we believe, can wait a bit.

Minority Report on the Way?

THE 2024 PLATFORM COMMITTEE OF THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION voted 84 to 14 on July 8 to propose “a platform that says,” report Brittany Shepherd and Isabella Murray for ABC News, “Republicans ‘will oppose late-term abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control and IVF (fertility treatments)’ while affirming support for the 14^th Amendment’s implication that the issue of abortion should be determined at the state level.” [sic!]

(The 14^th Amendment does not relegate the right to life to the state level!)

The proposed platform will be presented to delegates for adoption – or revision? – on the opening day of the convention, Monday, July 15.

In a rare move, a member of the platform committee has submitted a minority report, which, reports ABC News, “calls for the 2024 platform to restore its ‘commitment to a human life amendment.’” (The long-standing pro-life plank in previous GOP platforms has endorsed such an amendment while falling short of stating expectations that Congress is ready to advance such a proposal to the states. The clause is aspirational and expressive of a standing commitment to the right to life for all innocent human beings.)

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins – a leader familiar to readers of Life Advocacy Briefing – is the proposer of the minority report. He “has been vocal,” note the ABC reporters, “in his opposition to having the Republican platform soften its language on abortion. …

“That commitment to a human life amendment and a call for the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection application to children before birth has been repeated in every platform since and, by this declaration of principle, we extend it now. In no season, under no rationale spurred by the exigencies of a political moment, can or should we abandon the high principles that have created and sustained this party, with God’s grace, into a third century,’ according to the minority report,” quoted by ABC. “‘With heaviness of heart but fullness of optimism that the defense of life will inevitably prevail, we resubmit these ideals to our fellow Americans,’ the [Perkins] letter concludes.”

Adding his voice to the platform objection was former Vice President Mike Pence, who served 12 years in the US House before being elected governor of Indiana for one four-year term before being tapped by 2016 Presidential nominee Donald Trump as his running mate and then challenging him for the 2024 Presidential nomination. 

“‘Now is not the time to surrender any ground in the fight for the right to life,’” said Mr. Pence, quoted in the ABC report. “‘The 2024 platform removed historic pro-life principles that have long been the foundation of the platform. I urge delegates attending next week’s Republican Convention to restore language to our party’s platform recognizing the sanctity of human life and affirming that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,’ Pence said.”

The former Vice President, reports ABC, “called the new language ‘a profound disappointment to the millions of pro-life Republicans that have always looked to the Republican Party to stand for life,’ in a statement circulated by his nonprofit political advocacy group Advancing American Freedom.”

That statement, as the ABC reporters observed, “seemed to urge [convention delegates] to vote against the Trump-backed platform at that upcoming session” of the GOP National Convention.

The ABC report goes on to quote Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley in a “short gaggle with reporters [last] Monday evening – doubling down specifically on the abortion language,” calling the proposal “‘a very solid pro-life platform. We feel very, very solid about it,’” he said. … ‘The Republican Party stands for Life. And we are always going to stand for Life. I think when you look at this platform, you’re going to see that it is very pro-America. It is very pro-family. It is very pro-life. And we feel very strong about the language that we have.’”

He might wish to explain, then, why the platform committee’s deliberations were closed to the press for the first time, though traditionally they are televised live on C-Span.

Consequential Quarrel?

July 10, 2024, commentary by Suzanne Bowdey, editorial director of The Washington Stand, a publication related to Family Research Council

             The dust may have settled from the platform buzzsaw in Milwaukee, but the aftershocks haven’t. Almost 800 miles away in DC, Republican leaders are finally getting a chance to read the document that delegates didn’t. And as their reviews of the 16-page treatise start to fill up headlines and press interviews, there’s one overarching theme on the RNC’s radical changes: Why? …

             The new document, as many have complained, abandons the unborn to the states, completely ignoring all of the federal programs that have a role in protecting (or in Biden’s case, targeting) life. The military, Medicaid, the regulation of the abortion pill, the VA, taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood and overseas abortion, and the list goes on and on.

             Equally as horrifying, [former Vice President Mike] Pence adds, “The updated platform also cedes this fight to the states, leaving the unborn in California and Illinois to the far-left’s extremist abortion policies. The right to life is not only a state issue; it is a moral issue, and our party must continue to speak with moral clarity and compassion about advancing the cause of life at the federal, state and local level.”

             Even the mainstream media is picking up on the fact that this is a major departure from past positions of the GOP.

             ABC News’s podcast, “Start Here” with host Brad Mielke, highlighted the fact that abortion is not part of the platform’s top 20 priorities – instead, it’s “tucked away on one of the final pages.

             “And as expected, the language there strongly mirrors Trump, which has been deferring to the states. … And it goes on to say the group will oppose late-term abortion … But it’s interesting,” he notes, “because ‘We oppose late-term abortion.’ That doesn’t sound like we oppose all abortion. That almost seems like walking back from previous years. … This is the first time in decades that the RNC hasn’t explicitly endorsed a national ban on abortion in the platform.”

             In the Senate, Republicans also expressed dismay, worried that the axing of more than 1,200 words of pro-life principles and goals will come back to haunt Republicans on Election Day. “It has a lot of potential to hurt us,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Axios about the shift. “It’s the one issue that could divide the Trump base from President Trump,” Cramer said over text. “Right now Republicans have enthusiasm for our nominee when the Democrats clearly do not for theirs.”

             His Louisiana colleague, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R), chimed in, “I liked the way it was previously” – a theme echoed by Oklahoma Senator James Lankford (R). “We’ve had it for 40 years, I didn’t see a problem with it,” he replied when Axios asked if he wished the platform had kept the stronger language of the past several decades. “I was surprised, because it’s been such an important part of our party’s platform and what we stand for for a long time,” Utah’s Mike Lee (R) said.

             Back in Milwaukee, the shock is starting to wear off for the 112 men and women who were steamrolled by the RNC’s Monday heist. More are starting to speak up, including Iowa delegate Tamara Scott who called the whole stunt “heartbreaking.”

             “I tell people, my role is to uphold or to preserve our Judeo-Christian foundations as a nation, to protect our constitutional liberties and freedoms, and … to protect our principles as a platform. And so it was heartbreaking,” she lamented. “It was heartbreaking.” Like so many others, she agreed the document “was not terrible” but insisted it “could be stronger, could be better.” In the end, Tamara wanted people to know, “We, as a party, are still pro-life. It’s just not the great language, the distinctive, definitive language that had clarity that we have enjoyed and stood with for 40 years. … It was taken off, as you know, without the ability to really even have a vote or have input as to whether or not it was removed. We were just presented with a brand new document.”

             Pointing to how much people sacrificed to be there, how time-consuming and expensive it is to be a delegate, Tamara sounded off on how astonished these Republicans were to be elbowed out of the process. “People who do this are committed,” she told guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice on [FRC’s] Washington Watch Tuesday, “and they want to have input. Beyond that, they’re [representing] their state. … I don’t take that lightly. And to not even be given a chance to have discussion, to present an argument … was demoralizing. It felt disrespectful to these folks to spend this kind of money and be … dismissed. It was disheartening. … These folks deserved better.”

             This idea that the platform needed to reflect Trump and not the conservative base is just illogical, Scott pointed out. “For months I’ve heard this rhetoric from people associated with the campaign that it needed to reflect his messaging or his marketing. No, the party is separate. Now, where we work together, we work in tandem, and it’s great when that happens. But a campaign document is from a candidate. It is top-down. … A party platform is [from] the grassroots ground up, and it is for the next 40 [sic] years. It is our timeless principles, our core values and those aspirations which we hope to achieve. We may not get them in four years, but it’s something that’s important enough, like life, that we will continue working towards it.”

             As FRC Action Chairman Tony Perkins put it colorfully when talking about the platform to Hice, “It’s not rat poison, but it’s cotton candy. It’s not the substance that we’re accustomed to that lays out these enduring principles that movements are built upon. It does lack clarity on the issue of life. It is a step back.” To those handful of groups and Trump allies who want to sweep all of the problems on the life language under the rug, Perkins warned, “I don’t like spin, okay? … It is a step backwards. It doesn’t move us closer to recognizing that all human life, which is created in the image of God, is to be welcomed into our world and protected under our laws. It falls short of that, and it moves it further away.”

             Is it discouraging? Absolutely. But, as FRC’s president reminded Christians, “No victory this side of heaven is permanent, nor is any defeat permanent. And so, we keep going.”

             “This is what Ephesians 6 talks about,” he said of his signature Bible sign-off. “… The battle is never done this side of heaven. We have to continue to perpetually stand for the truth, knowing that there’s going to be good days and there’s going to be some days like [Monday], bad days. But you know what?” he asked. “God sits on His throne, and He laughs at the nations who rage against Him and say that they can do it their way. God’s truth is enduring. That’s where we should stand, and that’s where we should move our communities, our country.”

             His stand and FRC’s stand for truth isn’t personal. As Hice said, “This is not a battle against any candidate or any party, per se. This is a stand for truth, for biblical truth, something that we have done for decades – and something that now we must continue.” But the fact of the matter is, it cannot happen again. “I think [the RNC] need[s] to know that this is not acceptable,” Tony reiterated, “because if not, we’ll see this repeated in four years, and we can’t have that.”

             “It took us 45 years to get to where we were,” he said, looking back. “And so, to see a retreat in one day and not even have debate on it, it was insulting. It was wrong, and it cannot be tolerated. So, we’re encouraging people to … inundate Chairman [Michael] Whatley with this support of this minority report, saying we will not [stand for] the party moving away from the issue of life.”

             In the meantime? Perkins urged people to go into the election with “eyes wide open.”

             “We still have a clear contrast between the two parties. … We can continue to do our work – [to] pray, vote and stand.”

             Turning serious, he tried to rally the base’s discouraged troops. “Let me again be very, very clear, folks. We have to vote, and we have to have discernment. And we have to understand we’re not going to have perfect alignment [with any party]. And so yes, we’re disappointed in this temporary setback. … [But] staying home, folks, is not an option. It’s not an option. I mean, not voting is a vote for the worst possible outcome. And so, we have to be informed and engaged even when we’re not completely happy with what we’re dealing with.”

             Look, Perkins encouraged. “There’s always been hope as long as the sun is rising. But God has entrusted us with this moment, and I think He’s entrusted us with this moment to be faithful to the truth, to proclaim that truth even when it is politically inexpedient. … We’re to continue to speak that truth, and we will at the Family Research Council, knowing that God will be honored. And when He is honored, His blessings come with it.”

             Will we turn this country around? “I certainly hope so,” he said optimistically. “That’s what we’re working to do. But if we don’t, well, that’s upon God. The results belong to Him. The duty to obey is ours.”

What Would the Voters Say?

July 5, 2024, The Washington Stand report by Jared Bridges, TWS editor-in-chief

             … A new poll released today shows that the issues of life, the family and religious liberty are still at the forefront of GOP voters’ minds. The survey, conducted by WPA Opinion Research, showed continued concern about these issues, which have been core to the Republican platforms for decades.

             WPA put this question to 1,000 likely voters: “Leading up to 2024, the Republican Party Platform has included strong positions on unborn human life, strengthening the family and religious freedom. Would these issues impact your vote this fall a lot, just some, not too much or not at all?” The poll found 62% of Republican voters said that the party platform position on these issues would impact their vote (37% said it would impact it “a lot,” and 25% said it would impact it “just some”).

             On the issue of Life, the survey showed that 66% of GOP voters think that Republicans should keep (32%) or strengthen (34%) the party’s current platform position on the protection of unborn life. The 2016 Republican Platform contains a substantial statement of the Life issue, including calling for a constitutional amendment protecting unborn life, and both federal and state protections for the unborn.

             Regarding the issue of families and religious freedom, GOP voters likewise were not backing down. Of the likely Republican voters, 74% said that the party should either keep the current positions (23%) or adopt a stronger position (51%).

             The polling was commissioned by FRC Action, which earlier this week launched its Platform Integrity Project to influence the platform committee to keep or strengthen its conservative planks. …

             [Now quoting FRC Action Chairman Tony Perkins, delegate from Louisiana to the Platform Committee]: “As Ronald Reagan noted, ‘There are cynics who say that a party platform is something that no one bothers to read, and it doesn’t very often amount to much.’ But he said ‘a banner of bold unmistakable colors with no pale pastels’ would reveal the difference between Republicans and the other party. America is in an unprecedented place of moral and cultural confusion and is in dire need of leadership and moral clarity. The Republican Party must once again communicate a clear and hopeful contrast between the parties by painting a message for voters on the foundational issues – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – not in pale pastels but in bright, bold colors.”