Paganizing the Platform

GOP poised to weaken party plank on abortion

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The Republican Party is playing with fire — and brimstone.

On Monday, Republican National Committee (RNC) officials agreed to downgrade the GOP's stance on the principal moral issue of our time.

In a closed-door session in Milwaukee, members of the RNC Platform Committee — the vehicle through which the GOP's official set of principles is shaped and defined — voted 84-18 to soften the party plank on abortion.

STREAMLINING VS. FLATLINING

For weeks leading up to Monday's ballot, the scuttlebutt inside the Beltway hinted that a push to revise the GOP platform was in the works.

In a June 27 memo to the platform committee, Trump campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles announced that the former president's top advisors would seek to overhaul the 66-page platform ahead of the July 15-18 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The document indicated that the updating was meant to streamline the platform, which many viewed as unwieldy.

"For decades, Republicans have published textbook-long platforms that are scrutinized and intentionally misrepresented by our political opponents," the memo stated. "Publishing an unnecessarily verbose treatise will provide more fuel for our opponent's fire of misinformation and misrepresentation to voters. It is with that recognition that we will present a streamlined platform in line with President Trump's principled and popular vision for America's future."

News of the updating sparked unease among many religious conservatives. Viewed through the lens of abortion, a platform "in line" with Trump's "vision for America's future" implied a watered-down position on the sanctity of human life. (Though Trump's current abortion stance is much, much friendlier to the unborn than that of self-identified Catholic Joe Biden, it still leaves much to be desired.) Fearing that the revision would go beyond mere streamlining, pro-lifers began voicing concern that the reworking was being devised as an accommodation to the zeitgeist — the spirit of the age.

They were right.

OUT WITH THE OLD

Prior to Monday, the Republican platform — approved in 2016 and re-adopted in 2020 — was at every level stridently pro-life. Its design was especially robust, considering that Roe v. Wade was still law of the land when the statement was first crafted.

Declaring that "the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed," its aims included affording the unborn equal protection under the law, and enacting a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks of gestation:

"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 2024 draft platform, however, is different. Titled "America First: A Return to Common Sense," this new statement of principles is broadly pro-life, but compared to its predecessor, its fervor is radically diminished.

Gone is the call for a human life amendment. The appeal for a federal abortion ban has likewise been withdrawn. Instead, the platform now characterizes abortion policy as largely a state-level matter:

"We proudly stand for families and life. 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."

While the draft does reiterate Republican opposition to late-term abortion, it backslides by championing "access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments)," both of which often result in the destruction of early-stage embryos — i.e., the deaths of fellow human beings. As Souls and Liberty has previously reported, the Catholic Church explicitly condemns contraception and in vitro fertilization as intrinsic evils — unnatural, dehumanizing and anti-life.

Though the new platform is not yet set in stone — the committee-approved draft heads to a full vote next week — its deficiencies are unlikely to be redressed.

SOLDIERING ON

Despite their disappointment at Monday's defeat, a number of religious conservative leaders responded with statements reiterating their dedication to the pro-life cause, as well as their commitment to the GOP. It seems they resolved to make the best of a bad situation, and to keep pushing forward on behalf of innocent human life.

In the lead-up to the platform committee's vote, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, boldly denounced proposals to render GOP abortion principles more palatable to political moderates by weakening the party plank. In a July 2 news release, she forecast the consequences that watering down the platform could bring.

"If the Trump campaign decides to remove national protections for the unborn in the GOP platform, it would be a miscalculation that would hurt party unity and destroy pro-life enthusiasm between now and the election," Dannenfelser warned.

"For decades, passionate pro-life activists have been the grassroots backbone of the Republican Party," she added. "They believed the Republican Party had an ironclad commitment to protect the unborn. This alliance is at risk of being severely weakened next week in Milwaukee."

On Monday, after news of the platform revision broke, Dannenfelser released a follow-up statement. Putting on a brave face, she tipped her hat to the pro-life language that remained in the platform, and underscored the threat that a second Biden-Harris term would present to America's unborn:

"It is important that the GOP reaffirmed its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment. 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 four 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."

Likewise, prior to Monday, Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, was openly critical of any attempt to declaw the Republican Party platform on abortion.

On June 10, Reed joined more than a half-dozen other pro-life leaders in penning an appeal to Trump, urging the former president not to undermine the party plank on abortion. In the letter, Reed and his fellow signatories demanded that the platform retain mention of federal limits on abortion, and that it incorporate the following statement: "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."

On Monday, after these demands went unmet, Reed issued a statement highlighting the platform's remaining bright spots.

"The Republican Party platform makes clear the unborn child has a right to life that is protected by the Constitution under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment," Reed noted. "That language has been in the GOP platform for 40 years and reflects the view of Ronald Reagan. While aspirational, it applies to both the states and the federal government."

"The proposed ban on late-term abortion also implies federal as well as state action," Reed suggested. "It is an unapologetically pro-life position, and we are grateful to President Trump and the Republican Party for standing for life."

Similarly, prior to Monday, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins — a member of the RNC's platform committee — was an outspoken critic of ameliorating the platform's language on abortion.

Like Dannenfelser, he warned in the lead-up to Monday's vote that for many GOP faithful, diluting the plank would deflate morale.

"It's going to dampen the enthusiasm," Perkins cautioned in a July 5 Newsmax interview. "It's not going to turn people to the other side — that's not going to happen. But elections are driven by the energy and the enthusiasm — the intensity. This dampens the intensity. That's the last thing we need."

In a Monday follow-up for Newsmax, Perkins voiced restrained disapproval of the revised platform:

"It's a great campaign platform. But in terms of enduring principles to build a party on, I think it lacks substance."

"Life continues to be a winning issue," he noted. "It's been a winning issue for the party. It's attracted a lot of pro-life Catholics and Evangelicals into the tent. Our concern is that, you dampen that enthusiasm, and the tent gets smaller."

"Elections are won by big tents, not small tents," Perkins continued, "and I'm a little concerned about what appears to be [a] moving away ... from a strong, definitive position in protecting children from the moment of conception ... For 40 years, that's been an aspirational goal for the party, and as a result, it has shaped policy at every level."

POLITICS OVER PRINCIPLE

Donald Trump is widely — and rightly — considered the most pro-life president in American history.

During his first term in office, he appointed a historic number of conservatives to the federal bench; among the hundreds of judges who trace their positions back to Trump, many have advanced the pro-life cause through soundly-reasoned rulings.

Chief among these, of course, are justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, whose elevation to the Supreme Court capped Trump's effort to steer America's judiciary to the right.

Trump's masterful remaking of the the high court resulted in his crowning achievement: the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022 — the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Indeed, it can be argued that Donald Trump, more than anyone else, is responsible for terminating the national abortion regime — a system, imposed by judicial fiat in 1973, that devoured more than 63 million of America's children during its 49 years of existence.

Without question, the death of Roe was an astounding victory, and pro-lifers will always be grateful to Trump for his role in bringing it about.

However, in the two years since Roe's passing away, the former president has come to view abortion as an impediment to his larger political designs.

Fueled by the machinations of Communist-Democrat provocateurs, Roe's demise sparked rabid backlash against the pro-life movement and its leaders — Trump, in particular.

As a result, he's concluded that abortion policy must be decided at the state level, and no longer supports national provisions such as a human life amendment or a federal ban on abortions at 20 weeks.

Today, Trump regards abortion as not only a political liability, but as his greatest point of vulnerability — an albatross that Communist-Democrats are trying to exploit to derail his reelection bid and forever wreck his broader aims of uprooting the Deep State and restoring America to greatness.

Operating under this mindset, the former president gave the go-ahead to soften the Republican platform's abortion-related objectives — in fact, he personally lobbied for the revision. During Monday's closed-door deliberations, Trump called the committee to drive the process forward.

"This is something hopefully you will pass," he reportedly told committee members. "You will pass it quickly, and we will show unity in our party as opposed to the disaster that is going on with the Democrats. We are going to win because we have right on our side. We have good on our side. I think, frankly, we have God on our side. These people are opposed to religion."

Four out of five committee members chose to honor Trump's request, voting to denude the platform of key federal-level objectives.

Sadly, therefore, fault for the downgrading of the party plank must be laid squarely at the former president's feet.

COMPROMISE AND CAPITULATION

Trump is not alone in his shift on abortion policy. With the most crucial election in American history less than four months away, GOP leaders are casting a nervous eye toward the millions of voters — chiefly independents and undecideds — who will determine the country's fate on Nov. 5. Like Trump, some are sacrificing moral principle for the sake of political expediency.

On Sunday, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — a self-identified Catholic, and a leading contender for vice-president — told CNN that he supported purging the platform of its call to enact a federal abortion ban:

"I think our platform has to reflect our nominee, and our nominee's position actually happens to be one grounded in reality. The reality of it is the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And what that basically means is that now it's not states — it's voters at individual states who will get to decide how and to what level they want to restrict abortion, if at all. Some states will have restrictions. Some states will not. And so, I hope that our platform will reflect our nominee."

In an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" that same day, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio — also a self-identified Catholic, and another front-runner for Trump's vice-presidential pick — said that he supports preserving the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone for American women.

Though certainly disappointing, such displays are not particularly surprising. Their audacity reflects the cold pragmatism of US politics, and speaks to the limits of the pro-life movement's impact on post-Roe American society. Even a few years ago, any self-described conservative backing federal inaction on abortion or advocating for mifepristone accessibility would have been nailed metaphorically to the wall. Not so today.

Over the past two years, abortion activists have seized control of the narrative and are now dominating the national debate. Too often, pro-lifers have responded clumsily, ploddingly — almost distractedly — floating underfunded campaigns that at times seem imprecise in their design and disorganized in their execution. Though well-meaning, too many pro-life efforts are ill-suited to repelling abortion activists' relentless onslaught. Compounding this emerging malaise are indications that a majority of Americans do, in fact, want abortion to remain legal.

As Souls and Liberty has previously reported, America's post-Roe era has been marked by a chain of major pro-life defeats.

From 2022-2023, pro-lifers were trounced in seven out of seven state-level abortion-related referendums. Again, in every major state-level ballot, the pro-life camp was thrashed, not by activist judges, but by voters themselves:

• The Kansas electorate, by a margin of 59.16%, rejected an amendment to their state constitution to protect the unborn. (Aug. 2, 2022)

• The Michigan electorate, by a margin of 56.66%, enshrined abortion in their state constitution. (Nov. 8, 2022)

• The California electorate, by a margin of 66.88%, enshrined abortion in their state constitution. (Nov. 8, 2022)

• The Vermont electorate, by a margin of 76.77%, enshrined abortion in their state constitution. (Nov. 8, 2022)

• The Kentucky electorate, by a margin of 52.35%, rejected an amendment to their state constitution to protect the unborn. (Nov. 8, 2022)

• The Montana electorate, by a margin of 52.55%, rejected a "born-alive" proposal to recognize babies who survive abortion as persons under the law. (Nov. 8, 2022)

• The Ohio electorate, by a margin of 56.78%, enshrined abortion in their state constitution. (Nov. 7, 2023)

It appears likely that more electoral defeats are looming. Activists are fighting to place constitutional amendments and other abortion-related measures on the November ballot in more than a dozen additional states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania and South Dakota.

For America's unborn, the death of Roe is not the lifeline that it once seemed.

Of course, the fact that abortion has been turned over to the states is monumental. But it seems that a half-century of "my body, my choice" conditioning, coupled with an increasingly rampant spiritual blindness, has had a devastating effect on citizens' ability to think critically, reason clearly and vote morally.

Even in reliably Republican states like Kansas, Kentucky and Montana, it appears that a majority will fight for their guns, for lower taxes and for the right to homeschool — but not for those in utero.

Since the summer of 2022, millions of average, ordinary, everyday Americans — more than half the population across seven states — have betrayed our unborn countrymen at the ballot box.

Legions of "good-but-godless" types, including a host of faux conservatives, have

weaponized their vote against our most vulnerable, actively participating in the murder of the nation's children — and, by extension, in the murder of America itself.

This begs the question: What future does a nation have if it chooses to sacrifice its own children on the altar of sexual expediency? 

GOADING GOD'S WRATH

As it did with Reaganism two generations ago, today the GOP is institutionalizing Trumpism, remaking the party in the former president's image. This is an exciting prospect, as in many ways, if successfully achieved, institutionalization will reinvigorate both the Republican Party and the United States. Even so, Republicans would do well to remember that Trump is the party's captain and caretaker, and that Christ alone is its King.

With that in mind, a final analysis of the revision of the GOP platform suggests several things. First, much of the draft is quite laudable, reflecting real promise for reform in matters that are not tied directly to the moral realm.

In view of this fact, to some it might appear that the revision is not as ominous as many religious conservatives are making it out to be — that the purging of major pro-life principles will spark no disasters for the party or for the nation.

Many observers might even be tempted to think that, strategically, the shift represents a net gain — a gamble, to be sure, but one that may be worth the risk. Perhaps Republicans will gain more votes from moderates on the margins than they lose from the Christian faithful at the party's core. After all, where could religious conservatives go? No politically viable pro-life alternative currently exists.

Viewed through a different lens, however, the purging of the GOP platform is an ominous indicator of America's accelerating moral decline. The ease with which politics were elevated over principles on Monday is a sign that decay is now seeping into the heart of the Republican Party, and encroaching upon its diminishing Christian core.

The Democrats have already gone this way. Long ago, the party gave itself over to darkness in a gluttonous grasp at power and, as a result, today it echoes Trotsky more than it does Truman.

In contrast, the Republican Party has been a holdout, managing to keep such depravity at least partially at bay. Of course, many of its members — a great many — are just as compromised as their Democratic counterparts. But, owing to the Christian remnant that persists at its core, the GOP had not surrendered wholesale to the corruption of its individual members. Then came Monday.

In John 15:5-6, St. John the Apostle recounts the words of Christ:

"I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned."

The purge of the platform indicates a break with the party's past, and a rejection of the ideals that have guided it for decades. In many ways, it signals a severing from Christ.

This is foreboding, as apart from Christ, the GOP can do nothing.

The Deep State, for example, is a satanic construct. It is spiritual as well as temporal in nature. Therefore, no matter how exceptional Trump's leadership, he will fall short against his foes without Christ. The Deep State cannot be uprooted if the GOP is cut off from the vine.

Monday's vote to purge the party platform marks the first step down a very slippery slope of decline.

This must be resisted — Republicans cannot allow themselves to warm to Moloch.

Writer, editor and producer Stephen Wynne has spent the past seven years covering, from a Catholic perspective, the latest developments in the Church, the nation and the world. Prior to his work in journalism, he spent eight years co-authoring “Repairing the Breach,” a book examining the war of worldviews between Christianity and Darwinism. A Show-Me State native, he holds a BA in Creative Writing from Pepperdine University and an Executive MBA from the Bloch School of Business at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

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