The Republican Party's decision to soften platform language on federal abortion restrictions, leaving it for the states to decide their own policies, is drawing mixed reactions from the party’s base.
“The platform itself, though less eloquent than in years past, does have two elements that we worked for more than seven months to achieve," said Kristen Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action. "It actively condemns late-term abortions and acknowledges that in a post-Roe America, the 14th Amendment provides a legal foundation for protecting life in law.”
Unveiled at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, the party's revised position pivots away from a decades-long commitment to constitutional reforms seeking a nationwide ban on the practice — among the most controversial topics in American politics.
While the new 16-page document retains language connecting abortion to the 14th Amendment, allowing for the possibility that lawmakers and court rulings can grant more legal rights to fetuses, it also says "states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights.”
“What remains to be seen is how that translates into personnel and policy," Hawkins told VOA. "We are still waiting to hear — from the podium — an acknowledgment of pro-life values and voters.”
After facing a string of 2022 midterm losses in Congress and state races where abortion was in the spotlight, Republican Party leaders, say some antiabortion advocates, have made a politically practical decision that recognizes absolutist positions on abortion as a vulnerability at the ballot box.
“Any presidential administration must act to protect human life [and] we were glad to see the RNC take up this language in defense of preborn American lives,” John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life, said in a prepared statement that emphasized the importance of focusing on winning hearts and minds on the abortion issue at the state level, while uplifting women and families through supportive federal policies.
Anti-abortion-rights Republican stalwarts, such as former Vice President Mike Pence, were less supportive of the move in the days before the party platform language, which is in no way legally binding, was publicly unveiled.
"The RNC platform is a profound disappointment to the millions of pro-life Republicans that have always looked to the Republican Party to stand for life," Pence said in a statement July 9, just after the RNC leadership said it was preparing to announce the change.
"It has a lot of potential to hurt us," Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told Axios about the new language that same day.
Anti-abortion-rights demonstrators protested outside the convention earlier this week, shouting “blood, blood, blood on your hands!” to fellow Republicans making their way into the venue, according to The Washington Post.
On the convention floor, however, the response has been more muted.
"Even though I am an ultra-conservative on the pro-life issue, because of my life circumstances, I believe that it should have been a state issue, not a federal issue," Ken Crider, a former state Senate candidate and Michigan delegate, told Axios.
Axios described a pattern of unwavering personal anti-abortion conviction blended with a belief in states' rights to decide the matter, according to more than 10 delegates who spoke with the outlet on Tuesday.
June 24 marked two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision recognizing a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. Since that time, access to the process across the United States has shifted dramatically, with large parts of the country effectively banning the procedure and others passing laws to safeguard it.
Rob Garver contributed to this report.
