Republicans Backing Away From Most Important Issue of Our Day

Written by Terence P. Jeffrey

When can you deliberately kill an innocent human being?

Answer: Never.

But that is not what the Republican Party says in the new platform it approved at its convention this week.

When President Ronald Reagan was running for reelection in 1984, the Republican Party adopted a platform that unequivocally called for the legal protection of all human life — from the moment of conception to natural death.

“The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed,” said that platform. “We therefore reaffirm our support for a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”

Each Republican National Convention through 2016 adopted a platform reiterating this exact point. (In 2020, when the COVID pandemic “significantly scaled back the size and scope” of the convention, the party did not draft a new platform.)

The Republican platform that Donald Trump ran on in 2016 stated the following: “The Constitution’s guarantee that no one can ‘be deprived of life, liberty or property’ deliberately echoes the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that ‘all’ are ‘endowed by their Creator’ with the inalienable right to life. Accordingly, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”

The 14th Amendment plainly declares that no state may “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” — and then gives the federal Congress the “power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

Thus, Congress — under the authority of the 14th Amendment — can enact legislation that prevents states from denying unborn children their right to life.

Over the years, pro-life senators and House members have repeatedly proposed legislation to do just that.

In 2004, for example, Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma proposed the Life at Conception Act. This bill, according to its official summary, declared “that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being beginning at the moment of fertilization, cloning, and other moment at which an individual comes into being.”

In 2011, Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California introduced this bill in the House. In 2013, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio introduced it in the House. In 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023, Republican Rep. Alex Mooney of West Virginia introduced it in the House.

In 2011, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi introduced it in the Senate. In 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky introduced it in the Senate.

So, what did the Republican platform that was approved at this year’s Republican National Convention say about the right to life?

It included a plank bearing this title: “Republicans Will Protect and Defend a Vote of the People, from within the States, on the Issue of Life.”

This plank stated the following: “We proudly stand for families and Life. 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).”

It says nothing about the U.S. Congress having the power — which it plainly does under the 14th Amendment — to enact legislation protecting the right to life of unborn babies from the moment of conception.

It says that “the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights.” Are they merely “free” to do so? No. Because unborn children have the same God-given right to life — and the same right to equal protection of the law — as born persons, states are not free to allow abortion to continue. They must protect the right to life of all human beings — as must the U.S. Congress.

“We will oppose Late Term Abortion,” says the Republican platform. So, does that mean they will not oppose the killing of unborn babies who are not “late term”?

The Republican Party says it will support “policies that advance … access to Birth Control, and IVF.”

What about birth control methods that act as abortifacients? The platform does not say the Republicans will oppose those.

And by supporting policies that “advance” IVF, the Republicans are supporting a procedure that conceives babies in a laboratory then freezes or discards those not implanted in their mother’s womb.

In the platforms it adopted at its conventions from 1984 through 2016, the Republican Party took a principled stand on the right to life.

Now it is backing away on the most important issue of our day.

Terence P. Jeffrey started as editor in chief of CNSNews.com in September 2007. Prior to that, he served for more than a decade as editor of Human Events, where he is now an editor at large. Terry earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Princeton in 1981.

Terry writes a weekly column for the Creators Syndicate and is a regular guest on CNN’s Situation Room. He and his wife, Julie, have five children and live in the Virginia suburbs outside of Washington, D.C.