Anti-abortion activists at RNC angry over 'watered down' Republican Party platform

Anti-abortion advocates have long been considered a lock for Republican votes.

But when the Republican Party platform was finalized last week without language supporting a national ban on abortion, it angered many with strong beliefs on the issue.

Anti-abortion protesters demonstrating Monday outside the Republican National Convention said they felt out-of-step with the party and former President Donald Trump.

“The national Republican Party, the RNC and the president ought not to take the pro-life base for granted,” said Matt Sande, legislative director for Pro-Life Wisconsin, who was among those who rallied near Haymarket Square Park in downtown Milwaukee.

Abortion is expected to be a top issue for voters in November after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide, in 2022. The decision has been unpopular with voters and is seen as a potential political liability for Trump.

A majority of Americans oppose a federal abortion ban and seven in 10 Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while three in 10 believe it should be illegal in all or most cases, according to a poll released this month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Last year, Trump took credit for the Dobbs decision, writing on his social media platform: “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone.” More recently, Trump declined to endorse a nationwide abortion ban, saying the issue should be left to the states, language that is reflected in the Republican Party's platform this year.

"We can't have this patchwork of protections for the pre-born dependent on which state that you live in," Sande said.

Sande said some who find the updated GOP abortion stance objectionable may stay home from the polls. Others will vote grudgingly but will avoid door-knocking, canvassing and other get-out-the-vote efforts, he said.

Sande said the platform should have banned medication abortions, which he called a loophole for access to abortion. Medication abortions account for more than half of all abortions in the U.S. and are used to end pregnancies in the first 10 weeks, according to research from the Guttmacher Institute. The pills also are used to manage miscarriages.

Anastasia Rogers, 31, of San Francisco joined demonstrators from Live Action, an anti-abortion organization known for posting edited videos taken at Planned Parenthood. She called the RNC's abortion stance "ridiculous."

"Saying 'your state, your choice' sounds very similar to 'your body, your choice' in my opinion," she said. "It's essentially just a pro-choice platform in disguise."

New abortion platform approved at RNC on Monday

On Monday, delegates at the RNC officially approved the new party platform and language on abortion.

The language states, in part: “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.”

Previous RNC platforms stated that an "unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed," which anti-abortion advocates saw as a stronger stance.

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Resource Council, told the Washington Post on Monday that anti-abortion advocates had planned for a fight over the platform language on the convention floor but decided against it after Trump survived an attempted assassination on Saturday in Pennsylvania.

Still, the new platform, which was praised by some anti-abortion advocates, directly references the 14th Amendment which some say leaves a door open for granting fetal personhood. Fetal personhood would grant embryos and fetuses legal and constitutional protections that are equivalent to the person who's carrying them at every stage of pregnancy.

Even though the platform supports access to birth control and in vitro fertilization, legal experts have said any recognition of fetal personhood could have ripple effects far beyond a nationwide ban on abortion with no exceptions, potentially outlawing in vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research and some forms of birth control.

Several anti-abortion protests took place on the first day of the RNC

About 50 anti-abortion protesters belonging to several different groups appeared around the RNC on Monday.

At Red Arrow Park downtown, a half-dozen members of a group that describes itself as a progressive anti-abortion organization staged a mock "wedding." A woman in a blood-spattered white dress, representing the "abortion industry," pretended to marry a man wearing a pool noodle on his nose to represent an elephant trunk, symbolizing the Republican Party.

The group, which is called the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, was mostly comprised of young adults. An activist in the group was sentenced in May to nearly five years in prison for blocking access to a reproductive health clinic in Washington, D.C.

Members of the group also chanted and held signs as protesters from the Coalition to March on the RNC passed, and in Red Arrow Park, the anti-abortion activists shouted back at a man with a bullhorn who disagreed with them.

At Haymarket Square Park, just north of Fiserv Forum, the main RNC venue, was Deacon Jim Matthias, who directs the Respect Life Ministry within the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

Matthias said he was disappointed in the "watered down pro-life platform" Republicans announced and said the two parties present "two extreme" options.

With several pressing issues on the ballot, Matthias said people need to weigh the importance of the abortion issue against others when they go to the polls. He noted that the U.S. bishops wrote in a Catholic voters' guide that abortion should be the "preeminent priority."

"The archbishop will tell you to vote pro-life. He's not telling you a candidate; you can decide which one is the one that's pro-life," Matthias said.

Sophie Carson is a general assignment reporter who reports on religion and faith, immigrants and refugees and more. Contact her at [email protected] or 920-323-5758.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Anti-abortion activists at RNC protest Republican Party platform