By Jonathon Van Maren, First Things, July 16, 2024
Jonathon Van Maren is the author of Patriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life Movement.
The Republican National Committee proposed its 2024 GOP party platform in Milwaukee on July 8, and for the first time in forty years, this platform does not include support for a national abortion ban. Instead, the GOP’s anti-abortion positions are softened and many of the party’s previous pro-life commitments have been removed. In particular, the committee stripped a key line included in every GOP platform since 1984: “The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.” Instead, the platform states that the power to pass laws on abortion is the purview of the states. It only commits the GOP to opposing “Late Term Abortion” and it supports access to “Birth Control and IVF.”
In every presidential election year, Republican delegates from every state meet to form the Republican National Committee. This committee then puts together a GOP party platform, to be adopted at the Republican National Convention. Gayle Ruzicka, who has served as a delegate on every RNC since 1992, bar one, told me that the RNC process was different this year. Ruzicka is a national board member for Eagle Forum, the socially conservative interest group founded by Phyllis Schlafly in 1972. …
