Donald Trump Weakened the Republican Platform’s Pro-Life Language

The Republican National Convention (RNC) today adopted the GOP Platform that is less expressly pro-life and pro-marriage than before. It abandons the commitment to a human life constitutional amendment and for extending the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of the right to life to the pre-born and for a federal ban on abortions after 20 weeks gestation. Instead of a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks gestation, the proposed Republican platform leaves it totally up to States to permit abortion. It also abandons the statement that marriage is between one man and one woman. The language was weakened at the behest of Donald Trump in closed-door meetings, unlike televised ones previously, and was rushed through. Eighteen of the 102 Convention Delegates signed an informal minority report, which was not a formal one because it fell shy of the 25% threshold. A group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, Advancing American Freedom, were among the conservative pro-life leaders who urged Delegates to restore the stronger pro-life language to the GOP platform. There were pro-life protestors at the RNC. In 2016, the only part of the Republican Platform the Trump campaign opposed was language calling for defensive military aid for Ukraine against Russian aggression. The language was removed from the document. The purpose of party conventions is to nominate candidates for president and vice president of the United States, but in recent decades, the primary election process has supplanted the role of Delegates, most of whom are elected in primary elections by the voters, as has the practice of presumptive nominees choosing their own running mates, even though by the rules it is completely the choice of the Delegates, as a nominee may choose not to recommend anyone and the Delegates are free to choose another candidate, even if he does. But the last vestige of any role for the Delegates has now been eviscerated by the Republican Party. Instead of nominating candidates who represent its views as expressed in its platform, it is allowing its presumptive nominee to change the platform to represent his views, as the leader of the party, even before he is nominated. Thus, the representative model of governance of the Republican Party has now been supplanted by an autocratic one. Meanwhile, several Republican U.S. Senators who are not supporters of Trump are planning to skip the RNC.