RNC platform betrays pro-life base

The Republican National Convention’s Platform Committee, and those pro-life groups running interference for it, should reconsider their position on stripping language on abortion from the final platform. North Carolina’s pro-life community, and pro-lifers across the nation, will not be ignored.

I have participated in every National Platform Committee since 1988, beginning as a volunteer for the RNC. During those years, I served four times as a platform delegate from North Carolina and in 1992 chaired the subcommittee that addressed the life issue. Phyllis Schlafly and other pro-life groups sponsored me to assist pro-life delegates during the intervening platforms.  

I speak from experience. What happened on July 8 was, plain and simple, a travesty both in terms of process and substance.  

The Republican Party has always prided itself on open proceedings. Unlike the Democrats, our platforms have always been written by delegates, not in back rooms by party elites. Yes, the campaign would weigh in and pressure and “whip” delegates. (In 1996, Henry Hyde, who was the chair that year, crashed a strategy meeting and told the delegates they would add apology language in the pro-life plank. Fifteen of us told him, “No,” and he left.) Nonetheless, it was always a document written by the delegates. 

This year things took an unfortunate turn. At the delegation meeting the night before the platform proceedings, delegates were told they would not be given the platform. Monday morning, the first day of the platform, delegates were forced to put their phones in locked containers, herded into a room, given a platform document with their “assigned” number, and forced to listen to several grandiose speeches from individuals who were selling themselves for a new position in the Trump administration. Trump called into the proceedings and told the delegates how great the platform language was. 

Consideration of the platform, historically, has taken 3 to 5 days. In subcommittees, delegates reviewed and amended assigned platform sections. The section was read paragraph by paragraph, giving delegates an opportunity to offer amendments. The revised document was then presented to the full committee and the process began again, section by section, providing a second opportunity to shape the party’s document. Microphones were readily available. Rules were followed, and debate and votes were plentiful. 

Not this time. Platform deliberations lasted 30 minutes. There were no subcommittees. Every motion to amend the document was blocked. At every vote, an RNC staffer paraded across the front of the room with a green poster board with “Yes” on it or a red poster board with “No” on it. 

Tony Perkins, representing Louisiana, asked for the rules on filing a minority report. Chairman Blackburn refused to provide that information. After a few minutes, an assigned delegate read from a piece of paper at one of the two microphones in the room and “called the question,” which ended debate. That motion passed and approval of the platform came shortly thereafter. Fewer than two dozen brave delegates voted no. I can all but guarantee that most delegates had not even read the document in full. 

And what did the campaign get for their efforts. Just to name a few tidbits on the life issue: 

1. A removal of language supporting a Human Life Amendment, 

2. A removal of language opposing the sale and harvesting of body parts from aborted babies, 

3. A removal of language opposing public funding for abortion, 

4. A removal of language opposing embryonic stem-cell research, and

5. A removal of 14th Amendment language including the “unborn” within the definition of personhood. 

I will save for another time the document’s absence of language defining marriage as between one man and one woman and the absence of support for Israel. 

A belief in the sanctity of human life is the core principle that separates us from the Democrats. It is the first inalienable right and is inextricably linked to the right to liberty. The Republican Party of Lincoln and Reagan has always been the party protecting life. We have now crossed the threshold and have turned our backs on the unborn in the hopes of garnering a few more votes.

If delegates can right this wrong at the convention this week, for the sake of all of us, I hope they do.