After much speculation about what influence former President Donald Trump would wield over the Republican Party platform’s abortion provisions, the final result looked fairly similar to the platforms of years past but with much more toned-down language.
This is what the party platform said in part in 2016:
“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 platform’s abortion section goes on for another full page, committing to appointing pro-life judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, ban federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and enact restrictions on abortion at 20 weeks and for eugenic reasons such as sex and disability.
In 2024, the platform’s text on abortion is much shorter, as is the entire platform, which is only 16 pages long with a lot of white space. The 2016 platform was 66 pages long of tightly packed together text.
“We proudly stand for families and Life,” the 2024 platform says. “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).”
At first glance, the language largely tracks as an abbreviated version of the 2016 platform. But there is a glaring omission: the removal of the pledge for a “human life amendment to the Constitution,” which had been in the platform for decades.
Still, at least one pro-life organization, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, is at least tacitly on board with the platform as written.
“It is important that the GOP reaffirmed its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment,” the organization’s president Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement. “Under this amendment, it is Congress that 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. The platform allows us to provide the winning message to 10 million voters, with four million visits at the door in key battleground states. We are educating voters on the Biden-Harris promotion of abortion for any reason even in the seventh, eighth, or ninth month. We contrast that with protecting the states’ ability to create consensus pro-life laws and provide compassionate options for women and children.”
The new platform’s language reflects the difficult realities of the political moment of 2024. Thanks to the judicial appointments that Trump made during his first term in office, Roe v. Wade was overturned, allowing state governments to ban or permit abortion as each sees fit.
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But the demise of Roe also thrust abortion into a preeminent national issue that has proven to be an electoral liability for Republicans who have long prided themselves on their support for pro-life policies.
It is this difficult reality that requires the party in 2024 to present a pragmatic, but not a moderate position on abortion that will allow laws to be passed that work to rebuild a culture of life that was so damaged by 50 years of legal abortion nationwide.