Rating Republican Presidents on Their Pro-Life Bona Fides

Not everyone makes the grade

Donald Trump’s circumlocutions on abortion, along with Melania Trump’s recent declaration that she is pro-choice, have led to a concern among pro-life advocates that a second Trump term might not be nearly as pro-life as they would like. 

But how firmly opposed to abortion have any recent Republican presidents been? 

Melania Trump is not the first pro-choice Republican presidential spouse. In fact, we have not had a pro-life Republican first lady in the last fifty years. Betty Ford called Roe v. Wade a “great, great decision” in 1975. Nancy Reagan refused to say anything about abortion when her husband was in the White House, but in 1994 said that while she thought abortion was wrong, she believed in a “woman’s choice.” 

Barbara Bush, a longtime supporter of Planned Parenthood, wore a pro-choice button to a Republican Party event in 1980. She noted in a private memo that she supported federal funding for abortion.

Laura Bush said that it was “important” that abortion remain legal for “medical reasons and other reasons.” Roe v. Wade should not be overturned, she said in 2010.

But what about the Republican presidents themselves? What if we graded each of the Republican presidents since Roe on how well their policies and actions protected unborn human life? 

Richard Nixon

Before Roe v. Wade, Nixon advised Republican congressional candidates not to talk about abortion, but his administration authorized medical facilities on U.S. military bases to perform abortions. His first vice president, Spiro Agnew, had signed into law an abortion liberalization bill when he was governor of Maryland. The Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was written by a Nixon appointee (Harry Blackmun). In fact, of the four justices Nixon appointed to the court, only one (William Rehnquist) voted against the majority in Roe. 

But Nixon also tried to court social conservatives, so he made a few faint rhetorical overtures to pro-lifers. After Roe, he signed into law legislation authorizing medical personnel and hospitals that received federal funding to exercise their right of conscientious objection by refusing to provide abortions—a bill the American Catholic bishops strongly supported. 

Grade: D-

Gerald Ford

A year before he became president, Ford reacted to Roe by endorsing a “states’ rights” constitutional amendment that would have rescinded Roe by returning the power of abortion regulation to the states. But as president, Ford selected as his vice president one of the nation’s most strongly pro-choice Republicans—New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, who had signed into law the nation’s most permissive abortion policy before Roe. 

During his campaign for a second term in 1976, Ford tacked to the right on the issue and reiterated his support for a “states’ rights” amendment. To appease social conservatives and pick up more Catholic votes, he allowed the Republican Party to add a statement to the party’s platform supporting an antiabortion constitutional amendment—a promise the party retained until this year, when Donald Trump arranged for its removal.

But Ford took no further actions to limit abortion. He vetoed the pro-life Hyde amendment (which passed over his veto). The one justice that Ford appointed to the Supreme Court (John Paul Stevens) was a consistent vote for abortion rights during his thirty-four years on the bench. 

Grade: D+

Ronald Reagan

Despite signing into law one of the nation’s earliest abortion liberalization bills in 1967 when he was governor of California, Reagan became a fervent (and apparently genuine) convert to the pro-life cause long before he entered the White House. Reagan pushed back against further abortion law liberalization in California and endorsed a Human Life Amendment during his 1976 presidential campaign. His continued support for the HLA earned him the strong support of pro-life activists when he ran for president again in 1980. 

Although there was not enough support in Congress to pass an antiabortion constitutional amendment, Reagan issued executive orders that restricted government funding for abortions. He met with pro-life leaders, spoke about his respect for unborn life, and released a pro-life book (Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation) during his reelection campaign of 1984. He also appointed one of the nation’s leading evangelical Christian advocates of the pro-life cause—C. Everett Koop, who had coauthored a pro-life book and film documentary with Francis Schaeffer—as surgeon general.

Yet Reagan’s record on judicial appointments was mixed. He elevated an anti-Roe justice (William Rehnquist) to the position of chief justice, but of his three new appointments to the Supreme Court, only one (Antonin Scalia) was a consistent vote against abortion rights. Another justice he appointed (Anthony Kennedy) became the author of Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which reaffirmed Roe and protected abortion rights for another thirty years. 

Perhaps because Reagan did not have the votes in Congress to take substantive action against abortion, his rhetoric always outstripped his ability to deliver pro-life policy victories. Abortion rates were high before Reagan took office and barely changed during the eight years he was in the White House. Pro-life activists never got what they really wanted from Reagan: a Human Life Amendment or a Supreme Court ruling reversing Roe v. Wade.

Grade: B+

George H. W. Bush

As a member of a Connecticut liberal Protestant family that had long supported Planned Parenthood, Bush opposed the Human Life Amendment when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980. But when Bush was selected as Reagan’s running mate, he pledged his support for the Republican platform, including its endorsement of the HLA. He maintained this stance when he ran for president in 1988, although he supported abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. 

As president, Bush won plaudits from pro-life advocates for vetoing bills to weaken the Hyde amendment or to allow fetal tissue from abortions to be used for medical research. He also appointed pro-life conservatives to several key positions in his administration. This effort may have paid off when the FDA banned the importation of mifepristone. Although this decision was reversed during Bill Clinton’s presidency, the decision of Bush’s FDA delayed the proliferation of chemical abortions in the United States.

But of the two justices he appointed to the Supreme Court, only one (Clarence Thomas) was an opponent of Roe. Abortion rates started to drop during Bush’s presidency, and perhaps his willingness to uphold the Hyde amendment kept them from rising. Yet at the end of Bush’s presidency, the Supreme Court issued Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), with one of Bush’s judicial nominees (David Souter) voting with the majority to uphold abortion rights.

Grade: B

George W. Bush

When Bush ran for president, he talked about valuing unborn life, but since his wife and mother were pro-choice, it’s not surprising that Bush also insisted that “good people can disagree” on abortion. As president, though, Bush did more than any previous president to restrict abortion. He signed into law the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act (the first federal restriction on an abortion procedure) and restricted funding for embryonic stem cell research. Both of his judicial appointments—John Roberts and Samuel Alito—were generally inclined to vote against constitutional protections for abortion, with Alito eventually writing the judicial opinion that reversed Roe v. Wade. 

While abortion remained legal everywhere in the United States throughout the Bush administration, Bush’s actions in office weakened the foundations of Roe. 

Grade: A-

Donald Trump

So, where does Trump fit into all of this? Like the Republican presidential record as a whole, his actions and rhetoric on abortion have been a mixed bag. 

Trump’s rhetorical support for the pro-life cause is sufficiently lackluster to merit only a C at best. This does not bode well for the pro-life cause: In the case of previous Republican presidents, their pro-life rhetoric has generally outpaced their policy deliveries. Trump’s pro-life supporters hope that Trump will be different; based on his past record of conservative judicial appointments, they expect that his policy deliveries in a second term will outpace his tepid rhetorical commitment to their cause. Whether that will happen is unknown. But the past half-century of Republican presidential administrations suggests that pro-life voters have often gotten less than they hoped for when they voted for Republican candidates aiming to protect unborn life.

Daniel K. Williams is a historian working at Ashland University and the author of Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade and The Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship. He is a Contributing Editor at Current.