The Republican Party’s decision to abandon its foundational principle of valuing human life from conception to natural death marks a significant departure from its historical commitment to its founding principles and pro-life voters. This action was particularly shocking to those of us who were delegates at the July Platform Committee meeting in Milwaukee.
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Contrary to some expectations, this departure from protecting the unborn and acknowledging our rights’ divine origin was not driven by grassroots Republican support. Instead, it was a top-down directive led by Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, chair of the Platform Committee. The process involved the intimidation of pro-life delegates and an unprecedented effort to block any debate or amendments to the platform.
As a faith-driven voter, which pollster George Barna calls SAGE Cons (Spiritually Active, Governance Engaged Conservatives), I, along with others drawn to the GOP for its alignment with biblical truths, am now grappling with what this shift means for the future relationship between faith-driven voters and the Republican Party.
This article is taken from The American Spectator’s fall 2024 print magazine. Subscribe to receive the entire magazine.
The present political challenge of this post-Roe era is not lost on us. However, for those who have been involved in the movement for more than a decade, the significant challenges of the past are a reminder of the resilience required. Following the June 2022 Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, pro-life ballot initiatives have faced defeat in seven state referenda, including in surprising states like Kentucky and Ohio. Why, then, resist a new party platform that would, if implemented, seek pro-life protections only at the very end of pregnancy and in states where they can be adopted by majority vote?
The best way forward for the Republican Party lies in its history. Traditionally, the GOP has stood for limited government, low taxes, the rule of law, and peace through strength. Yet, for many grassroots conservatives who helped the GOP become a majority party, it’s the commitment to civic virtue and moral principles — rooted in the party’s founding over a century and a half ago — that truly defines its legacy. The party was born with a society-shaking insistence on the universality of the Declaration of Independence, that all men “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” This was not a majority, much less a unanimous, view at the time of its adoption in the Republican platform of 1856.
That platform did not unite the country; its ramifications — and the need for its continual restatement — reverberated throughout American politics for decades. It divided the nation, led to civil war, prompted three constitutional amendments, further split the states during Reconstruction, and fueled debates over legal segregation and anti-miscegenation laws for another century. Today’s intense contest over the right to life, fortunately, does not involve all of these dimensions. People like me, who are not political by nature, entered contemporary policy fights precisely because of issues like abortion. We believe that the only qualification for protection in our laws should be the fact of humanhood, not some external test of age, quality, or condition of dependency. This issue is unlike others — such as tax rates or the level of armaments — where compromises are readily struck, and participants move on.
If states like New York, California, and Illinois deny all legal rights to a child in the womb up to birth and, yes, beyond, then we as a nation have denied that life is an inalienable right from our Creator. For decades, the GOP has aspired toward the universal recognition of this right. But now, under the pressure of a single election cycle that many of us believe it misreads, the GOP has set aside the clarity and specificity of a platform that stood on principle. The platform’s recognition of the right to life of the unborn and the duty of government not to perform, pay for, or promote abortion has been replaced by a call for limited action in some states but not others — the very position that Stephen Douglas and others espoused regarding slavery.
Restoring that platform, as we will seek to do, may prove difficult, but not as difficult as it will be to restore trust. The effort will be aided by the extremity of the Democrats’ position, which refuses to acknowledge the right to life of a single unborn child anywhere in America or worldwide. They even welcomed the parking of an abortion van outside their convention — a curious celebration of American hope and opportunity!
Art by Bill Wilson
Restoration will also be aided by consensus within the party. The platform document in Milwaukee was obtained by a crackdown on dissenting advocates for life that was not in the spirit of the GOP. Polls continue to show that the party’s grassroots support protection for the right to life. Gallup polls indicate that about 64 percent of Republicans favor abortion being legal only under limited circumstances. Barred from introducing an alternative pro-life platform in Milwaukee, nearly two dozen delegates signed a minority report, which I believe time will show reflects the view of a majority of Republican voters.
Ironically, fueled by the reality that abortion is necessarily a federal issue too, the nonsensical life plank of the current platform will be rejected. The federal government pays for nearly half of U.S. births through the Medicaid program, federal employment, and veterans’ and military health. It is the FDA that has greenlighted the mailing of abortion pills to minors and women without medical screening, now constituting more than 60 percent of the industry.
While I cannot speak for every signer of the alternative platform, I can affirm that we will not flag nor fail in our unwavering commitment to defending the unborn and the core principles that drew us to the Republican Party. There are some values and principles that transcend short-term political calculations. We will continue to strive with long oars for the distant shore.
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