July 16, 2024
In the aftermath of the Republican National Committee (RNC) Platform vote, there’s been questions swirling around whether the Party Platform for 2024 does enough to protect life. Students for Life Action (SFLAction) President Kristan Hawkins issued a statement to that effect when the news broke last week, where she called the GOP platform support of 14th Amendment a step in the right direction, and a “’Significant Contribution’ to Restoring Legal Protections to ALL.”
Excerpts from the op-ed are below:
“How much ground does the new language give away? What key issues does it fudge or ignore?
Kristan Hawkins: The platform story is a glass half-empty, glass half-full situation. For some reason, the Trump team wanted to quickly move forward on a shortened approach to a broad GOP agenda. But since late last year, Students for Life Action has been working behind the scenes and through our GOP for LIFE Project to communicate a vision which encompassed two important points in particular. These issues deserved more attention, but at the end of the day, we see two signs for hope. We worked:
- To affirm that the Fourteenth Amendment protects all life, something that must be relied on post-Roe. That was our Day One messaging after Roe v. Wade fell. It was the theme of two National Celebrate Life Day rallies at the Lincoln Memorial, and it represents a legal path forward. The fact that the Fourteenth Amendment made the copy cut is a win. This is a legal foundation for where we go from here.
- To oppose the GOP embracing a late-term abortion limit as a national aspiration, as compared to a strategy in certain jurisdictions. And to note, the platform specifically condemns late-term abortion, which is on the ballot in all states where the abortion lobby is running get-out-the-vote efforts with ballot initiatives. Condemning those ballot initiatives – as a national party from the top down – should now be on the table. With more than nine 9 in 10 abortions taking place by three months (12 weeks) of pregnancy, if the GOP embraced a limit at 12 or 15 or 20 weeks, it would have been a policy that didn’t move us forward in a post-Roe America. If the GOP is for more than nine in 10 abortions and the Democratic Party for all 10 of 10, where is a pro-life voter to go? The platform condemned late-term abortion and did not embrace, as the GOP standard, a late-term limit.”
One thing remains clear: no matter what happens or who stands alongside us, The Pro-Life Generation will continue to fight for preborn lives and mothers and end the barbarism of abortion in our lifetime. And this November, abortion will be on the ballot in many American states.
READ: Abortion IS on the Ballot: The Top Pro-Life Ballot Initiatives for 2024