How the GOP's New Abortion Stance Could Impact the Pro-Life Movement

Earlier this week, the Republican National Committee announced that its 2024 platform position on abortion would now mirror that of former President Trump’s presidential campaign. That means the party now opposes a federal ban on abortion and supports access to the abortion drug, mifepristone, and unregulated IVF services. 

Many pro-lifers are concerned, and they should be. Like other things witnessed over the last couple of years, this is a “You are here” moment for the pro-life movement. I talked with my friend Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and asked him to comment on the GOP’s platform. Here’s what he had to say: 

In the past weeks, there have been children who celebrated their second birthdays precisely because the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade has allowed those children to be born and now to celebrate birthdays, to walk, to talk, to giggle. No one in the pro-life movement should look at the Dobbs decision as anything but a huge success. But the pro-life struggle isn’t over. 

It took us 50 years to overturn Roe, and for all we know, in God’s timing, it may take 50 years for us to enact pro-life laws in all 50 states and at the federal level. But that’s going to require political leadership. What we’ve seen in the past several days, from senators auditioning to be the vice-presidential nominee and from the presumed Republican presidential nominee, has been dispiriting, to say the least. 

Courage has two opposing vices: rashness on the one hand; and cowardice on the other. Yes, there are some in the pro-life movement who have exhibited rashness in thinking that we could just abolish abortion overnight. The abolitionists get it wrong in thinking that courage is rashness. We’re all incrementalists now, and that means we need to be making incremental progress. 

But the other advice here is cowardice. And we’re currently seeing too many of our political leaders fail to exercise the virtue of courage and to instead retreat from the battle. Watering down the Republican Party’s platform [of] commitment to life is not courageous. It is cowardice. Yes, it is true that we need to win elections, but we need to win elections without throwing the pro-life cause under the bus. 

Every human being is made in the image and likeness of God. Every human being deserves the laws’ protection. That has to be a bedrock principle for the pro-life party. For a party that claims to be pro-life, what we’re currently seeing is the possibility of the party that historically was pro-life just becoming not quite as pro-choice. Pro-lifers need to insist on not being cheap states. 

The pro-life cause cannot just be an appendage of the Republican Party. Pro-lifers need to insist on our political leaders to show courage in advocating for the truth, even if we can’t currently enact all of the truth into law. We can be incrementalist, we can be prudent. We can be pragmatic without undermining the ultimate goal of the pro-life cause. 

It’s understandable why we’re seeing cowardice from some of our political leaders. They are reading public opinion polls, and they’re seeing that public opinion is not where it should be. But the best way that we can shape public opinion is when pro-lifers are locked out of Hollywood, they’re locked out of the media, they’re locked out of academia, they’re locked out of business, they’re locked out of more or less every other aspect of influence, except for politics. 

Who has a soapbox? Who has a bully pulpit? Who has access to the microphones more than Donald Trump or J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio? We need these individuals to show courage in advocating for the truth so that they can shape public opinion and not just be held hostage to public opinion. This is why so many of us have found the events of the past several days so discouraging because precisely the people who could be doing something right now to change political realities by shaping political realities are instead succumbing to momentary political realities. 

All of us need to remember that courage is the virtue that we need at this moment, and we have to avoid both of its opposing faces: rashness on the one hand; but cowardice on the other. 

Pro-lifers now face the question of where do their loyalties ultimately lie? To the short-term political victories, or to the long-term principle that every single life is valuable and has dignity because we are made in the image and likeness of God.  

For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org. 

Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Images/EyeWolf

Publish Date: July 11, 2024

John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.