Republicans have approved the GOP’s 2024 party platform, an extremely trimmed down version compared to previous years. The platform has caused controversy for several reasons — one of which is that for the first time in decades, it fails to explicitly state support for federal protections for preborn children.
The vote in favor of the new platform comes just hours after news broke that in the aftermath of Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump, some platform committee members would drop their plan to oppose the updated platform language. At least 20 members of the RNC’s Platform Committee objected to the changes, but Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and a platform committee member, said Monday that the plan to amplify their concerns outlined in a minority report had been scrapped in the name of unity, because of the Saturday shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Given today, and everything that has occurred, if the opportunity were there [for a floor fight] we wouldn’t take it at this point,” Perkins told POLITICO. “Don’t take our silence as being indifferent to what took place, it’s just timing.”
Delegates at the Republican National Convention (RNC) approved the new party platform on Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, solidifying that the party will stand behind the current presumptive presidential nominee (and former president) Donald Trump’s current position on abortion. That position is that laws surrounding abortion — the direct and intentional killing of innocent human beings in the womb — should be left up to the states to decide.
READ: Pro-life leaders offer mixed reactions to new GOP platform on abortion, IVF, and more
“The president is the leader of the party and he has built unity because of his winning record and his winning vision for the future, and he’s put together a team efficient at executing for him,” said RNC spokesperson Danielle Alvarez. “This team has gone and built consensus and spoken with delegates and made sure the support was there.”
The new position abandons a 40-year-long pro-life platform that supported enacting national protections for preborn children, though it is not a binding document.
“We proudly stand for families and Life,” reads the new platform. “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).”
The platform clearly states that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution ensures a right to life for all, and therefore, this conflicts with the idea that states can pass laws specifying which innocent children can be killed by abortion.
Live Action protests at the RNC in Milwaukee, WI, 2024.
Several pro-life groups, including Live Action, took to the streets outside the RNC on Monday to urge the GOP to protect preborn human beings and to protest the “decision to remove pro-life protections from their platform.” Live Action utilized signage as well as a moving, digital box truck that showed imagery depicting life in the womb.
For the first time in four decades, the @GOP has bowed to the pro-abortion mob and removed pro-life protections from their platform.@liveactionorg joined with pro-life advocates from across the nation outside of the Republican National Convention to protest this egregious… pic.twitter.com/fRhchIxWue
— Live Action (@LiveAction) July 16, 2024
Live Action also plans to protest outside the Democratic National Convention in August, due to the party’s pro-abortion platform.
Editor’s Note, 7/16/24: This article has been updated with information regarding pro-life protests outside the RNC.
