Republican infighting about abortion could spell trouble again in 2024

Former President Donald Trump is facing criticism from his own party over his approach to talking about abortion, as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee fights to change the GOP’s platform.

Trump says abortion should be left to states to decide, and he wants the 2024 Republican platform to reflect his position. Changing the Republican Party’s platform would be a departure from the GOP’s decadeslong support for a federal ban on abortion. The position would align with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022 that returned the abortion question back to the states.

Trump’s position is drawing ire from some anti-abortion coalitions who say withdrawing support from a federal ban on abortion undermines the conservative movement.

“If the Trump campaign decides to remove national protections for the unborn in the GOP platform, it would be a miscalculation that would hurt party unity and destroy pro-life enthusiasm between now and the election,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said earlier this week.

While Dannenfelser claims changing the platform would hurt Republican turnout in November, Trump says it would help his reelection efforts.

“You have to get elected,” the former president explained last month. During the first presidential debate, he indicated that keeping abortion at the state level smoothed the path for voters to support Republicans.

“It’s bringing it back to the vote of the people,” Trump told the country in June. “The states are voting and in many cases, it’s, frankly, a very liberal decision. In many cases, it’s the opposite.”

Other conservatives are frustrated with the shake-up of the anti-abortion strategy. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a Republican National Committee platform committee member, is another social conservative concerned that the platform’s language calling for a constitutional amendment against abortion could be removed.

“Party platforms matter,” Perkins said in a statement, according to the Washington Stand.

“The Republican Party must once again communicate a clear and hopeful contrast between the parties by painting a message for voters on the foundational issues — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — not in pale pastels but in bright, bold colors,” he added.

Perkins’s FRC has joined a host of like-minded socially conservative actions in launching the Platform Integrity Project. The initiative warns Republican delegates writing the party platform to use language that “preserve[s] life and family values.”

Led by some of the nation’s largest anti-abortion organizations, the Platform Integrity Project has also voiced concern that the Trump campaign is keeping the issue in the shadows ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The campaign announced it will not allow press and C-SPAN cameras at next week’s scheduled meetings, where the platform committee will consider platform language.

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“We are deeply concerned about recent developments that would close Platform Committee and Subcommittee meetings to all guests and media,” the FRC wrote to RNC Chairman Michael Whatley in a letter Tuesday.

The social conservatives called it an “unprecedented closure,” urging Whatley to “deliberate our Party’s Platform in the light of day.”