Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, believes that the issue of abortion in a post-Roe v. Wade America should be decided by the states. In other words, he does not support a federal ban on abortion. But here’s the problem: The GOP platform calls for a federal ban.
Here is Steve Contorno and Alayna Treene at CNN:
Anti-abortion leaders are warning Republicans not to remove a federal abortion ban from the party’s platform at next month’s GOP convention even as their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, backs away from it.
The current platform – put in place during Trump’s 2016 campaign for president and left unchanged when he ran for reelection four years later – calls on Congress to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks and for an amendment to the US Constitution giving the unborn the same rights as a person.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said it better stay that way.
“Our expectation is that the GOP platform will continue to unequivocally call for national protections for unborn children, rooted in the 14th Amendment,” Dannenfelser told CNN in a statement. “Watering down the GOP platform’s stance on life would entail an abandonment of its defense of the human dignity of all people.”
The sentiment was echoed last week by Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and a close ally of the former president. Speaking during a virtual event hosted by the Washington Post, Reed publicly urged the Trump campaign “to proceed with great caution in sending any message of vacillation or retreat when it comes to the defense of the innocent unborn.”
“I don’t think it would be either morally sound or politically advisable for the party to signal retreat on the sanctity of innocent human life in its platform,” he said.
CNN has asked Trump’s campaign for comment.
A senior Trump adviser told CNN that the campaign expects the party will vote on a platform “that reflects the policy and vision and agenda of President Trump.”
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