WASHINGTON – The Louisiana evangelical community isn’t happy with a proposed Republican platform that removes a national ban on abortion in exchange for a call that states handle the issue.
A key part of the Republican Party’s base, Christian conservatives see ending all abortions as a core tenet — not a political talking point — and have written a Minority Report for the Republican National Convention to consider before the delegates ratify, as expected, the party’s foundation document later this week.
Donald Trump has said little on the abortion issue other than the states should decide.
“America First: A Return to Common Sense” removes language that since 1976 had called for federal law to prohibit abortions after a certain point and for a Constitutional amendment saying life begins at conception. The proposed platform says states are “free to pass laws protecting” rights granted in the 14th Amendment.
“It removes the federal component which we believe is embedded in the Declaration of Independence and in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” said Gene Mills, head of the Louisiana Family Forum. “That plank is what holds many people to the party.”
The minority initiative is not so much an insurrection but a “respectful” reminder that the Republican Party long has stood for the “sanctity of life,” said Mills, whose Baton Rouge-based coalition of pastors and individuals have been instrumental in laws that ban abortion in Louisiana.
Nevertheless, approval of a softened abortion plank could be the only controversy at the Milwaukee gathering, where Trump is expected to be named the party’s nominee for president.
The Minority Report was drafted under the supervision of Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a former Baton Rouge state legislator. He was on the Republican Platform committee and among the “no’s” in the 84-18 vote Monday to forward the proposed platform to the full convention.
“In no season, under no rationale spurred by the exigencies of a political moment, can or should we abandon the high principles that have created and sustained this party, with God’s grace, into a third century,” the Minority Report states. “We rededicate ourselves to the core policy positions endorsed through deliberation and transparency with ever-increasing clarity in previous platforms, with respect to the funding of abortion domestically and internationally, the expansion of alternatives to abortion, support for credits for adoption and all children, ending the exploitation of embryonic human beings, and above all recognizing the application of 14th amendment protections to our developing offspring. These are issues for the ages and not for any single cycle in our national life.”
President Joe Biden’s campaign sees the Republicans continuing the anti-abortion drive.
“They are going beyond a national abortion ban to criminalize abortion medication, attack contraception, and track women’s pregnancies — all without congressional approval,” said a statement released shortly after the GOP platform committee’s vote. “Those are the stakes this November.”
Fourteen states have banned abortion, and seven others have restricted access to times that are less than what was allowed for half a century before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. About a dozen states have asked or are planning to ask voters to decide in referendums if abortions can be accessed in their states.
KFF’s Survey of Women Voters last week found that 69% of Republican women voters favor a federal law protecting access to abortions in the case of rape or incest in all states, even where abortion is banned. Among Republican women aged 18 to 49, the survey found 53% favored a nationwide right to abortion.
The political realities have led many in the anti-abortion movement to rationalize the party’s softening of its historic stance.
Benjamin Clapper, director of the New Orleans-based Louisiana Right to Life, said: “The platform shows that Republicans stand firmly against the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of overriding the pro-life laws of states like Louisiana with a federal abortion mandate.”
“They’re trying to find a dent in the armor to defeat President Trump,” state Sen. Rick Edmonds, R-Baton Rouge, said of Democrats. “That’s really the only card Democrats can play.”
Ordained as a Southern Baptist minister, Edmonds is a delegate to the Republican convention and has sponsored many anti-abortion measures in Louisiana. Edmonds pointed out that Trump during his first term supported anti-abortion initiatives and appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices who provided the votes to topple Roe.
“I don’t see a great variance or change on the president’s pro-life position,” Edmonds said. “The convention will still take a strong pro-life platform.”