(WASHINGTON) — The Republican National Committee’s platform committee adopted a new GOP platform on Monday — and it softens language on the issue of abortion, marking a shift in the party’s stance to more closely align with the views of former President Donald Trump.
The platform says that Republicans “will oppose Late Term Abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments),” according to the document obtained by ABC News.
The 2024’s brief section on abortion also states that the GOP “believes” that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution “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” — bolstering Trump’s view that the issue should be determined at the state level. That’s a change from the GOP’s 2016 and 2020 platforms that supported legislation that would have imposed a 20-week federal abortion ban — language that Trump ran on both cycles.
Full RNC membership will vote to officially confirm the platform from the convention floor, according to an RNC spokesperson. The party’s convention takes place next week in Milwaukee. Trump dialed into the meeting Monday morning and “described why some parts are in” the platform, according to the committee member. During the meeting, Trump also expressed his approval of a draft of the new Republican Party platform, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
Trump took a victory lap after the platform committee voted to approve a new overhauled party platform plan to better align with his political posture.
“Ours is a forward-looking Agenda with strong promises that we will accomplish very quickly when we win the White House and Republican Majorities in the House and Senate. We are, quite simply, the Party of Common Sense! America needs determined Republican Leadership at every level of Government to address the core threats to our very survival,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
The platform’s mention of abortion, however, came near the end of the full document. It is not included as part of the platform’s 20 principles that are prioritized first in the language. The first two of those principals call to “seal the border” and “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.” Those are followed by “end inflation” and “make America the dominant energy producer in the world.” Notably, the U.S. is already the top global oil producer.
Other points include “large tax cuts for workers and no tax on tips,” “defend our constitution,” “prevent World War III” by restoring peace in Europe and the Middle East and putting an end to “weaponization” of the government.
A political party’s platform distinctly outlines its positions on foreign and domestic policies, but it is not binding and doesn’t directly impact the work of elected officials or candidates.
Monday’s move by the committee comes as abortion remains a key issue for voters in an election year in what is expected to be a close race between Trump and President Joe Biden.
In 2016, the Republican Party — on their way to nominating Trump for the first time — adopted a strict, conservative platform around issues of gender and sexual orientation against the efforts by some of the party’s more moderate faction to soften that language. An identical platform was approved in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for party committees to convene and adjust language. During that convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump was chosen as the party’s nominee for a second time.
The Republican platform since the 1980s has articulated support for a constitutional amendment that would assert the sanctity and protection of human life, extending to unborn children. This is the first time in 40 years that the RNC has not explicitly endorsed a national ban on abortion in the platform.
Now, in 2024, the GOP will work to finalize a platform for the first time since the Dobbs decision overturned the constitutional right to an abortion more than two years ago. The plan could play an outsized role in establishing the ideals of a party reinvented by the former president, who has been clear about his opposition to a federal ban and his preference for this issue to be left up to the states.
Trump’s position on reproductive rights has worried some anti-abortion activists and RNC members who have expressed concern that the call for a “right to life” amendment would be stripped from the platform this year.
A platform committee member who spoke with ABC News following the vote, which passed 84-14, said there was a lot of “unanimity” around the language, even from some of the more socially conservative members who have been vocally opposing a platform reflective of Trump’s abortion stances.
“We had a whole bunch of people stand up and go the microphone [during a comment section]. And for the most part, things were really quite upbeat. People were happy to see this document,” the member said.
Following the vote, SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser — a major anti-abortion leader and one of the individuals lobbying the Trump team about the platform this year — released a statement supporting the document.
“It is important that the GOP reaffirmed its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment. Under this amendment, Congress enacts and enforces its provisions. The Republican Party remains strongly pro-life at the national level. The mission of the pro-life movement, for the next six months, must be to defeat the Biden-Harris extreme abortion agenda,” Dannenfelser wrote.
“The platform allows us to provide the winning message to 10 million voters, with four million visits at the door in key battleground states,” Dannenfelser added.
But others, including Gayle Ruzicka, a Republican National Committee platform member from Utah, told ABC affiliate WISN-TV that she was disappointed with how the platform vote was “forced” on committee members and with how it handled abortion.
“I’m extremely disappointed that we do not have any pro-life language. There are good things in this platform. … This is the first time we don’t have a pro-life platform. The platform simply says that we oppose late-term abortion. Well, what about before that?” Ruzicka said.
At a political event in Waukesha, Wisconsin, following the vote on Monday afternoon, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley dispelled notions that the platform was weak on the issue of abortion.
“We have a very solid pro-life platform. We feel very, very solid about it. I think you can just look at the number of pro-life groups from across the country that have come in and said that they strongly support this platform. Look, 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,” Whatley said.
The Biden campaign responded to the GOP platform’s softened language on abortion by reinforcing their stance that Trump, should he regain the presidency, would not be moderate on the issue.
“Despite Trump and his team’s best efforts, the American people are clear on just how far he would go to rip away their freedoms – and they’ll vote accordingly this November,” Biden-Harris 2024 Spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.
“Donald Trump has made it clear with his own words and actions what he will do if he regains power – rip away women’s freedoms, punish women, and ban abortion nationwide. You don’t have to take it from us, take it from Trump himself: He’s ‘proud’ to have ‘killed’ Roe v. Wade and unleashed extreme bans with no exceptions for rape or incest, which he calls ‘a beautiful thing to watch.’ He promised to be ‘leading the charge’ to ban abortion nationwide, and said he’d fight ‘side by side’ with extremists who want to ban abortion entirely. Trump himself said that women should be punished for having an abortion, that doctors should be criminalized for doing their jobs, and that he’s ‘looking at’ restrictions on birth control,” she added.
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