2024 GOP candidates reveal stance on abortion rights

Republican Presidential Candidates Champion “Sanctity of Life” on the Campaign Trail

Republican presidential candidates are reclaiming their “sanctity of life” mantle on the campaign trail after months spent dodging questions about federal abortion bans.

A year after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion, anti-abortion messaging dominated at a conservative conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday, where candidates unabashedly championed the right to life.

Former Vice President Mike Pence Calls for 15-Week Minimum Abortion Ban

Former Vice President Mike Pence raised the stakes when he called for all 2024 hopefuls to endorse a 15-week minimum abortion ban at the federal level during his speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Policy Conference.

“The cause of life is the calling of our time, and we must not rest and must not relent until we restore the sanctity of life in the center of American law in every state in this country,” Pence said.

Taking it one step further, the former vice president will spend Saturday morning hosting an Iowa “Celebration for Life” Tele-Townhall with Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser.

Pence, who is challenging former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, is leaning heavily into his persona as a principled conservative dedicated to championing anti-abortion issues.

He wasn’t the only candidate to tout his ideology among the conservative activist attendees at the conference.

Republican Candidates Emphasize Anti-Abortion Stance

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson plugged his record as an anti-abortion lawmaker. “As president, I would fight to make sure taxpayer funds are not used to support abortion,” he said. “And if Congress acts, I will sign a federal law to restrict abortion as well as president of the United States.”

Trump, who keynotes the conference on Saturday, has dithered on whether he would sign a federal abortion ban into law. As has former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Yet when addressing the crowd Christie defended his anti-abortion record.

“One of the biggest reasons the press said that I couldn’t win [when he first ran for governor] was because I ran as what I am — an unabashedly pro-life Republican,” he said.

“Now, what does that mean once you become governor of New Jersey? What it means is that for eight years, they sent me Planned Parenthood funding in New Jersey, and for eight years, I vetoed it, and we sustained every one of those vetoes,” he said to applause. He was later repeatedly booed and heckled for criticizing Trump.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) thanked God for the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe. “We are creating a culture of life in America, and that’s a really good thing,” he said. “The radical Left has lost so much faith in America. They have lost faith in life itself. But we’re here to tell them life is good, and we are proud to be Americans.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) had gone back and forth on lauding his six-week abortion ban on the campaign stump. But on Friday, he played up his legislative win, which goes much further than what Pence called for, to a supportive crowd.

“We have also delivered in Florida on promoting a culture of life, and that means signing the heartbeat bill into law that protects unborn children when there is a detectable heartbeat,” he said. “It was the right thing to do.”

Yet some conservative attendees were not impressed with a 15-week abortion ban.

“In my view, life begins at conception, and in my view, every life is important,” said Mayra Joli, a 57-year-old Miami, Florida resident originally from the Dominican Republic. “As a conservative, if we are going to protect the most vulnerable in society, there’s nobody more vulnerable than a child in the mother’s womb. So if we cannot be men enough and women enough to defend that life, the rest is just irrelevant for me.”

Zach Scherer, a 20-year-old criminal justice major at Southern New Hampshire University, said he doesn’t support the 15-week ban because he said life begins at conception. “The only stances that I would have that, you know, an abortion would be necessary was life for the mother or rape or incest,” he said. “Other than that, you know, you were dumb enough to do it. You’re dumb enough to have the kid.”

Most 2024 candidates addressed the conference on Friday, but Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will speak on Saturday, the exact one-year anniversary of Roe being struck down. Haley has already called for a “consensus” on abortion and acknowledged that a federal abortion ban is unlikely to pass through a divided Congress or a Democratic President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly declared he is most responsible for the gutting of the right to abortion when he appointed three Supreme Court justices that transformed the high court into a conservative 6-3 majority.

Although the GOP is once-again trumpeting anti-abortion ideology, they will still have to contend with the general election public. An NBC News poll released Thursday showed 61% of Americans disapproved of the Supreme Court overturning Roe, and 53% said they strongly disapproved of it.

Still, conservatives remain indefatigable. “We’re not going to rest until every child is safe in their mother’s womb,” said Ralph Reed, the founder, and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

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