The Republican National Committee took cues from presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday and made a giant step toward passing a party platform that softens its stance on federal abortion limits.
The RNC’s platform committee signed off on a Trump-inspired vision that omits the party’s embrace of a human life amendment to the Constitution and a 20-week federal ban on most abortions.
Mr. Trump’s fingerprints are all over the platform, typical for a party’s presumptive presidential nominee.
The 16-page platform is dedicated to the “forgotten men and women of America” and calls for a “return to commonsense.”
It pledges to:
• Unleash oil and gas production, curb wasteful spending and cut federal regulations.
• Complete the U.S.-Mexico border wall, put troops on the border and begin the largest deportation program in history.
• Make the 2017 Trump income tax cuts permanent, enact reciprocal trade deals, and return American astronauts to “the Moon and onward to Mars.”
• Make housing, education and health care more affordable.
• Protect Social Security, strengthen Medicare and adopt universal school choice.
• Restore law and order, stop “woke and weaponized government” and defend religious liberty.
The Republican National Convention will take up the platform next week. The document is expected to pass.
“President Trump’s 2024 Republican Party Platform articulates his vision to Make America Great Again in a way that is concise and digestible for every voter,” Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said. “While Joe Biden and Democrats argue about who will be at the top of their ticket and have implemented policies that have raised prices on everyday families, opened the floodgates to migrant crime via wide-open borders, shackled American energy with red tape forced by Washington bureaucrats, and sewn chaos across the world through weak foreign policy, President Trump will Make America Great Again through these America First principles.”
This was the first time the RNC had updated its party platform since 2016, when it adopted a 66-page document exploring deeper cultural issues.
Speculation has swirled around whether Mr. Trump would seek to water down the abortion language now that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the issue back to the states. Others wondered whether he would also soften the party’s stance on traditional marriage and gay rights.
“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,” the platform states. “After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the states and to a vote of the people.
“We will oppose late-term abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF [fertility treatments],” it says.
The previous platform endorsed a human life amendment to the Constitution and a federal Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act that bars abortions beginning at 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Mr. Trump has taken credit for nominating the conservative justices to the Supreme Court who helped overturn Roe, which provided a national right to abortion.
He has warned Republicans against pushing the issue too hard because it hurts the party’s chances of winning. He said the emotional issue was better left to the states to decide.
Pro-life activists warned the party against moving in this direction. Republican insiders said the move could anger the social and religious conservatives who have been among the party’s most faithful ground troops and some pro-life activists made their dissatisfaction knopwn Monday.
“Republicans are pro-life. Sadly, this platform is not,” said Kris Ullman, president of the pro-life Eagle Forum. “This 2024 platform removes the explicit pro-life principles that have been the bedrock of the pro-life plank.”
“While the 14th Amendment’s right to due process is cited, it does not apply the protections to the unborn,” she said. “Without clarifying that unborn children are included in the definition of ’persons,’ the reference is meaningless.”
On the issue of marriage, the platform says the Republican Party “will promote a culture that values the sanctity of marriage, the blessings of childhood, the foundational role of families, and supports working parents.”
The 2016 platform promoted traditional marriage “based on marriage between one man and one woman” as the foundation for a stronger society and families. It also condemned the Supreme Court ruling that required all states to grant same-sex marriages.
The Democratic National Committee said in a statement that the Republican language “was the most extreme, out-of-touch, and dangerous proposals in [Mr. Trump’s] MAGA platform that would let him fulfill his pledge to be a dictator on ‘day one.’”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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