June 4, 2024
Students for Life Action (SFLAction) has long called out Republicans for being weak on abortion or flip-flopping on the position when the time came to act. We’ve made quite a list of these Republicans in fact: Joe Biden’s Favorite Republicans. Among the luminaries are Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and State Sen.Merv Riepe of Nebraska, just to name a few.
READ: Joe Bidens Favorite Republicans are Fighting Against Students for Life’s Favorite Republicans
However, the New York Times (NYT) is offering up a few more suggestions, if their recent reporting is accurate. According to the report: “Republican candidates in all eight of the country’s most competitive Senate races have changed their approach on the issue of abortion, softening their rhetoric, shifting their positions and, in at least one case, embracing policies championed by Democrats.
From Michigan to Maryland, Republicans are trying to repackage their views to defang an issue that has hurt their party at the ballot box since the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights.”
And who exactly did the NYT call out?
- Bernie Moreno – a Republican businessperson who ran for a Senate seat in Ohio in 2022.
- David McCormick – a Republican businessperson running for Senate in Pennsylvania.
- Larry Hogan - the former governor of Maryland who is running for Senate.
- Mike Rogers - a former Rep. of Michigan, the front-runner in the Michigan Senate Republican primary.
- Eric Hovde – a Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate.
- Kari Lake – a Republican now running for Senate in Arizona.
- Tim Sheehy - a Republican running for Senate in Montana.
- Sam Brown – the Republican front-runner in the Senate primary in Nevada.
Throughout the article, the New York Times mentions how their positions have changed or how their campaigns have altered or removed pro-life language. Ultimately, that’s not the important focus point: the source of this information is.
All these candidates have two key things in common: they’re all being called out by the New York Times, a newspaper famous for its progressivism and commitment to leftist causes, and they’re all Republicans running in critical races in swing states.
Many of these swing states – Arizona, Montana and Maryland – are facing major votes on abortion this November in the State Constitutions.
Surely that’s just a coincidence? No – and we’ve written many times explaining how the pro-abortion push at the ballot box is a poorly disguised get-out-the-vote campaign for Joe Biden’s flailing re-election hopes.
READ: The Democrats Are Gambling Everything on Abortion Ballot Initiatives – That Could Backfire
Given that the media is not the ally of the Republican Party or even the pro-life movement, one should take this call out with a grain of salt.
In an op-ed that SFLAction President Kristan Hawkins wrote in The Washington Times, she called out consultants and “moderate” Republicans alike for making bad bets on abortion.
“Like a gambling addict down to his last dollar, the Republican Party lately makes a risky bet — that undercutting the principled position on human life will appeal to moderates who favor abortion access or independents who will never turn out in numbers to vote for the GOP on this issue,” wrote Hawkins at the time. “The party loses voter enthusiasm, loses the moral high ground, and loses credibility.”
It’s one thing to wage a campaign against weak-on-life Republicans to move them to stronger pro-life positions, like SFLAction has. We’re doing so to push the winning position among the Republican voting base that’s needed not just to win the primary, but the general election as well: to stand strong for Life and in defense of preborn babies.
It’s another thing entirely to get Republicans who were once (or still are) strong on life to capitulate further and become the so-called moderate candidates that would be easier to defeat in the November general election.
The Democrats are going all in on abortion in 2024 – running to extreme positions that far exceed Roe v. Wade. The Republicans cannot hide from the issue or pretend to be something they’re not. As the New York Times rightly identifies, many of the called-out candidates have taken very strong pro-life positions.
These Republicans can prove the pro-abortion lobby and their allies in the press wrong by choosing to boldly stand for preborn Life in law and service. It’s not just the right position morally – it’s the one that can win the election in 2024.
READ: Of Course the Democrats Hated Roe – It Didn’t Go Far Enough
Making peace with abortion of any amount is not the winning position – attempting to meet the Democrats halfway on the issue won’t help the Republicans take back Congress or the White House. And if it was, a hostile media would not be the ones advising their political opponents in the Republican Party to embrace it.
So, thanks but no thanks, New York Times – we will be the ones making the weak-on-life lists around here; at least we’re honest brokers about why.