The Republican National Convention kicked off yesterday with the nomination of Donald Trump as the party’s candidate for president. Trump, in turn, selected Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. The GOP also officially adopted its 2024 platform, which as Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump said, “has Donald Trump written all over it.”
The new platform, at 16 pages, is much shorter than the 2016 document, which was left unchanged in 2020. Since the platform reflects the Republican Party’s priorities, the question is where do Republicans stand on abortion?
The 2016 platform devoted nearly 800 words to the protection of life and expressly condemned taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, embryonic stem cell research, trafficking of baby body parts, assisted suicide, euthanasia, and the non-consensual withholding of food and water from vulnerable individuals. In the 2016 document, the GOP asserted the sanctity of human life and affirmed the inalienable right to life of children in the womb. The party supported a human life amendment to the Constitution to “make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”
Today’s platform affords just 90 words to the “issue of life.” This alone is not problematic: it is possible to denounce the indiscriminate killing of innocent children in a single sentence. What is troublesome, however, is the drafters’ apparent confusion about the meaning and significance of the 14th Amendment.
The new GOP platform recognizes that the 14th Amendment “guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process.” For the record, the actual text of the Amendment reads “…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In the same sentence in which it cites the 14th Amendment, the platform provides that “the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights.” Or not.
This section of the platform is titled “Republicans Will Protect and Defend a Vote of the People, from within the States, on the Issue of Life.” Presumably this means that Republicans will protect and defend a vote in favor of life – but that’s not what it says. The implication is that abortion is now a states’ rights issue and the GOP is mostly content to leave it at that.
As the Framers of the Declaration of Independence knew, our rights – especially the right to life – are not derived from the state, but rather are bestowed on us by our Creator. The Framers, informed by the natural law, referred to this as “self-evident,” meaning, it should be obvious and not require explanation.
This truth is not as evident to the framers of the new party platform. If you believe the 14th Amendment right to life applies to children in the womb, then it cannot be legitimately infringed by any state. Of course, every state that allows elective abortion is violating the right of children to be born. But that doesn’t mean we should suggest that states are “free” to abide by the 14th Amendment only if they choose to do so. This betrays a failure to understand the nature and purpose of the Constitution and the natural law upon which our founding documents are based.
Imagine that the party platform said states are free to pass laws restricting slavery. This is exactly what Stephen Douglas – a Democrat, by the way – proposed when he debated Abraham Lincoln in 1858, arguing that the country could be divided into free and slave states, with “each State having the right to prohibit, abolish or sustain slavery just as it pleases.” We fought a Civil War, resulting in the ratification of two constitutional amendments, to ensure that no state be permitted to allow practices that violate the self-evident premise of the Declaration that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
Similarly, it is incongruous at best to assert that children in the womb have a right to life “guaranteed” by the 14th Amendment while allowing states the freedom to decide if they wish to protect that right.
At a time when so many believe our Constitution is a “living, breathing document” that evolves according to societal values, the party of conservatives should strive to remain true to the text and tenets of our founding documents, especially concerning matters of life and death.
With that said, unlike some of my colleagues, I do not condemn the Republican Party for adopting a platform that is soft on abortion. The platform is not only a reflection of the party’s presidential candidate, but also a reflection of its voters. And most voters – even many conservative republicans – are no longer pro-life. This shift in public opinion is unmistakable – just look at Ohio, a “pro-life” state whose voters overwhelmingly adopted an amendment guaranteeing a constitutional right to abortion.
While I would have preferred to see stronger language protecting the vulnerable in the GOP platform, at least the party continues to acknowledge something like a right to life for prenatal children. The Democrat Party, which ironically recognizes “the worth of every innocent life” in the Middle East war, is manifestly hostile to innocent life in the womb. Not only does Biden intend to “restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land;” the Party of Death will go far beyond Roe to codify abortion without limits, as it has been doing through state laws and ballot initiatives.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the hand of Providence in protecting Trump this past weekend. This is a solemn reminder of Paul’s exhortation that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and acceptable before God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2 Titus 2:1-4)