This week, the Republican National Committee voted on the first new Republican platform since 2016. Eight years ago, the GOP’s platform — a hefty 58-page document outlining the party’s principles, goals, and positions on domestic and foreign affairs — laid out detailed policies for issues like abortion and marriage, but the most recent draft of the 2024 platform has both conservatives and progressives concerned. Is this latest version softening the party’s stances on social issues for political gain, or is it merely cloaking the same policies — or even more aggressive ones — in more opaque language?
One key difference in the 2024 platform is the mention of abortion, which has become a key electoral issue following the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
“We proudly stand for families and Life,” reads the platform. “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. 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).”
Last year, U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) introduced House Resolution 464, “Acknowledging that unborn children are legal and constitutional persons who are entitled to the equal protection of the laws,” which also invoked the 14th Amendment.
“The Republican platform endorses something anti-abortion extremists have been pushing for years — recognizing fertilized eggs as ‘people’ under the 14th Amendment,” said Cobalt President and CEO Karen Middleton in a news release. “We in Colorado are familiar with ‘personhood’ abortion bans, because we’ve defeated them three times at the ballot box — 2008, 2010, and 2014. ‘Personhood’ would ban all abortions without exception, IVF, and many forms of birth control. This is what Alabama passed with Amendment 2. The Republican Party amounts to ‘Alabamas everywhere.’ Extremist anti-abortion groups are already praising the platform for its ‘personhood’ language. Between this and overturning Roe, it’s clear that Trump’s Republican party will not stop until they have banned abortion nationwide. And it’s proof that we MUST secure abortion rights in the Colorado Constitution this fall.”
While the 2024 platform’s ‘personhood’ language is concerning for abortion advocates, it’s much different than the 2016 platform, which discussed abortion extensively albeit without mention of ‘personhood.’
“We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide healthcare,” noted the 2016 platform. “We urge all states and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts. In the meantime, we call on Congress to ban the practice of misleading women on so-called fetal harvesting consent forms, a fact revealed by a 2015 investigation [Editor’s Note: The investigation and claims of selling “fetal body parts” were part of ongoing efforts to use deceptively edited videos to attack Planned Parenthood. In 2022, a San Francisco jury found that the Center for Medical Progress, David Daleiden, and others who manufactured a fraudulent campaign against Planned Parenthood broke multiple state and federal laws in their efforts to bar access to reproductive health care]. We will not fund or subsidize healthcare that includes abortion coverage.”
The 2016 platform also called for a national abortion ban. “Over a dozen states have passed Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Acts prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks, the point at which current medical research shows that unborn babies can feel excruciating pain during abortions, and we call on Congress to enact the federal version,” reads the platform. “Not only is it good legislation, but it enjoys the support of a majority of the American people.”
The changes in the 2024 platform have drawn criticism from anti-abortion activists, like former Colorado GOP Chair Kristi Burton Brown. “It’s clear the GOP is the only pro-life party and our policies save more lives,” Brown posted to social media Monday. “It’s also clear whoever wrote the platform on life doesn’t understand the 14th Amendment. States are not ‘free’ to protect these rights; they *must* protect them. Human rights for ALL.”
Lila Rose, founder of anti-abortion group Live Action, also critiqued the 2024 platform. “It is a devastating indictment of our national values that neither of the national political parties’ platforms will support federal protections for preborn children targeted for death by the abortion industry,” she wrote in a statement shared on social media. “The North Star of the pro-life movement remains equal protection for all as guaranteed to every person, regardless of their age or geography, under the 14th Amendment. In 2016 and 2020, the GOP platform embraced this truth by making it clear that ‘the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.’ Similar language has been a consistent part of the party platform since 1984. The draft 2024 platform, however, offers a watered-down statement that minimizes the hundreds of thousands of American children killed each year by abortion. This would be the first time in four decades that the GOP platform does not include language that supports federal protection for the preborn.”
The 2016 platform also opposed same-sex marriage, noting, “Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law.”
The 2024 platform does not mention marriage, but has pivoted to the current anti-LGBTQ campaign against transgender people, stating, “We will keep men out of women’s sports, ban Taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries, and stop Taxpayer-funded Schools from promoting gender transition, reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls.”
