MILWAUKEE– The Republican National Committee decided Monday to adopt a party platform that reflects former President Donald Trump’s stance on opposing a federal ban on abortion and ceding limits to states, omitting the explicit basis for a national ban for the first time in 40 years.
Trump has imposed his priorities on the RNC’s platform committee as he seeks to remain clear during his campaign on strict language on abortion, while also taking credit for creating the 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade. Wade by the Supreme Court. Trump appointed three of the six justices who voted overwhelmingly to overturn the 1973 precedent that established a national right to abortion.
The pared-down platform — just 16 pages and with limited details on many key Republican issues — reflects the Trump campaign’s desire to avoid giving Democrats more fodder for their warnings about the former president’s intentions if he wins back the White House. President Joe Biden’s campaign has repeatedly highlighted the document “Project 2025” produced by Trump’s allies, as well as Trump’s own promises impose sweeping tariffs, replace thousands of public servants with loyalists, and organize the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
The policy document follows the party’s long-standing principle that the Constitution extends rights to fetuses, but removes language maintaining support for an “amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment apply.” to children before birth,” a passage in the party platform first included in 1984.
It states: “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person may be denied life or liberty without due process.” The document also noted “that states are therefore free to pass laws that protect these rights.”
The abortion language was first reported by The New York Times.
Anti-abortion advocates who criticized the Trump campaign’s efforts leading up to the platform committee meeting fell in line on Monday.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, praised the committee for reaffirming “its commitment to protecting the lives of the unborn through the 14th Amendment.”
Dannenfelser stopped short of endorsing the document’s reflection of Trump’s view that the matter is entirely up to the States. According to the 14th Amendment, “it is Congress that enacts and enforces its provisions.”
The platform committee started its meeting on Monday, a week before the start of the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin, where Trump is expected to accept his third consecutive nomination for president.
O platform is a statement of first principles traditionally written by party activists. In 2016, the platform included an endorsement of a 20-week nationwide ban. Trump had supported federal legislation in 2018 this would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, although the measure did not gain the necessary support in the Senate.
Trump this year faced months of Democratic criticism of abortion as Biden’s re-election campaign highlighted that Trump appointed half of the Supreme Court majority that struck down the national right to abortion in 2022.
In promoting the platform document, the campaign released a statement highlighting 20 issues it addresses, including immigration, the economy, energy, taxes and crime, but omitted any mention of abortion in the subject titles.
Among abortion opponents on the platform committee, some say that the aspiration for a federal ban on abortion after a certain stage of pregnancy should remain a tenet of the party, even if it is not an immediately achievable policy or one that would necessarily help the campaign. of Trump in November. .
“I see this as problematic. We still need these principles to be clearly stated. Some of these battles are not over yet,” said Iowa state Rep. Brad Sherman, a platform committee member who supported Trump’s winning campaign in Iowa in January and also supports a federal limit on abortion.
Conservative activists who were used to having a seat at the table were angered in advance by what they said was a secret committee selection process and the meeting taking place behind closed doors.
“For 40 years, the Republican Party and the Republican Party platform have benefited greatly from an open and transparent process,” said Tim Chapman, the new president of Advancing American Freedom, a foundation led by Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence.
The Trump campaign sought to transform the Republican National Committee into a campaign vehicle. He signaled in a memo last month from senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles that “textbook platforms … are scrutinized and intentionally misrepresented by our political opponents.”
Trump ally Russ Vought is serving as policy director for the Republican Party platform-writing committee while also leading the effort to develop the 180-day agenda for Project 2025, a comprehensive proposal to remake the government that Trump said on Friday he knew “nothing about” despite having several former advisors involved.
After the 2022 midterm elections, Trump blamed Republicans who held strict anti-abortion positions for the party’s failure to secure a larger majority in the Chamber. Since then, he has criticized stricter abortion bans in each state.
An AP-NORC poll conducted in June 2023 found that about two-thirds of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The poll also found that 6 in 10 Americans think Congress should pass a law that guarantees access to legal abortion nationwide.
___
Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed from Washington.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
