By Father Shenan J. Boquet
Every four years, representatives of each of the main U.S. political parties meet to formulate and approve an official party platform.
These platforms outline a comprehensive political vision, including specific legislative and executive proposals, that each party commits itself to putting into action.
And for decades now, the difference between the platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties on key moral issues has been nothing short of stark.
The Radical Democratic Platform
On the issue of abortion, for example, the 2020 Democratic party platform is sweeping in expressing the party’s support for abortion in any and all circumstances. It also expresses the party’s strong support for increased public funding for Planned Parenthood, birth control, comprehensive sex-ed, and transgenderism.
All told, the term “LGBT+” appears 32 times in the 2020 Democratic party platform. Naturally, the platform takes for granted the party’s support for the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. But it goes much, much further than this.
The platform advocates for the passage of the extremely dangerous “Equality Act,” which would all but destroy fundamental religious freedom and conscience rights. It also states that federal contractors should be required to proactively hire individuals that identify as LGBT.
It also formally commits the party to exporting the LGBT agenda worldwide using the State Department, USAID, and the National Security Council, and advocates requiring educational institutions to allow students to use facilities based upon their “gender identity” rather than their biological sex.
In other words, it is a truly radical document. It espouses the full gamut of woke, progressive talking points, including all the recent, radical innovations of gender ideology. If implemented in full, the Democratic platform would transform our country into one that would be unrecognizable to our ancestors.
We can expect the 2024 Democratic platform, which will be approved at the upcoming National Convention in August, to be at least as radical.
The Formerly Pro-Life Platform
The 2020 Republican platform, on the other hand (which was exactly the same as the 2016 platform), was a dramatically different document.
On the issue of abortion, the platform could scarcely have been any more pro-life. “[W]e assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,” it reads, adding, “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”
The platform goes on to express the GOP’s unequivocal opposition to funding Planned Parenthood and the use of fetal tissues in research. It also lays out a comprehensive plan for supporting a Culture of Life, in which women facing unplanned pregnancies are provided with concrete assistance, and in which adoption is strongly supported by government funding.
The pro-life section concludes with a resounding condemnation of the Democratic Party’s approach to abortion. “The Democratic Party is extreme on abortion,” it reads. “Democrats’ almost limitless support for abortion, and their strident opposition to even the most basic restrictions on abortion, put them dramatically out of step with the American people.”
On the issues of marriage and sexuality, the 2020 GOP platform was similarly strong. “[T]he foundation of civil society, and the cornerstone of the family is natural marriage,” the platform states, going on to clarify that this means “the union of one man and one woman.”
As such, “Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society.”
A Disturbing Shift
However, something dramatic occurred a few weeks ago, raising major alarm bells among pro-life and pro-family leaders around the world.
Meeting in Milwaukee in mid-July, GOP representatives proposed and passed, apparently with very little debate, an updated platform for 2024 that has all but gutted most of the pro-life and pro-family talking points. In some cases, these talking points had been in the GOP platform for decades.
Even mainstream media outlets were startled at the change. As Politico reports, “The 2016 GOP platform uses the word ‘abortion’ 35 times. The 2024 platform uses it once.”
They have helped post-abortive women find healing.
Whereas all previous versions of the GOP platform had strongly condemned abortion in general, the new platform only expresses opposition to “late term abortion” (something that even many Democrats oppose!). And instead of advocating for a constitutional amendment protecting human life from conception, the new GOP platform punts the issue of abortion to the states, saying only that states are “free to pass laws” protecting the right to life.
Even worse, in the very same sentence as the one condemning late-term abortion, the new platform expresses the party’s support for access to birth control and in vitro fertilization (IVF). IVF, as we know, leads to the death of millions of embryonic children around the world every year, which is why the Catholic Church roundly condemns the practice.
The GOP platform also completely retreats on the issue of marriage. Nowhere to be found in the new platform is the GOP’s longstanding commitment to upholding marriage as the union of a man and a woman. So, it is unsurprising that the Log Cabin Republicans, a pro-LGBT organization that President Trump has repeatedly hosted at Mar-a-Lago, issued a statement after the publication of the new platform, expressing enthusiasm for the change.
“This platform sends a powerful message to LGBT conservatives across the country that we are not only welcome in the Republican Party, but a part of the movement to Make America Great Again,” they wrote.
A Strange Paradox
It is no secret that President Trump is behind the GOP’s strategy to formulate a more pragmatic platform, one that strenuously avoids taking strong stances on controversial issues that some Republicans worry could cost them at the ballot box in November.
This amounts to a strange paradox.
On the one hand, President Trump was the first and only president to follow through on the promise made by numerous Republican presidents and presidential nominees since the 1970s – the promise to appoint Supreme Court Justices that would overturn Roe v. Wade. But on the other hand, he seems to be the first president in decades to formally move the Republican party away from a truly pro-life and pro-family platform.
Numerous media outlets and commentators have noted this paradox. As Politico notes, overturning Roe was arguably the single most consequential achievement of Trump’s presidency. What pro-life activists had been working strenuously for finally came to pass. And yet, notes Politico, writing from the National Convention floor, “No one at the Republican National Convention is talking about it.”
In fact, as Politico notes, the issue of abortion barely came up at all during the convention. Instead, speakers focused on various other, populist politics. As one delegate told Politico, “A lot of people in the party are realizing that we should not be trying to judge somebody’s life, dictate how somebody lives their life, and they’re focusing more on the policies that are good for all Americans.”
What Are We to Do?
As a Catholic, I am committed to the principles that our Church advocates. Whatever politician or party is most likely to advance those principles, is a politician or party worthy of support.
In America, there is no question that the Democrats are formally the party of death. Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race does not change the Democrat Party’s position on contraception, abortion, same-sex unions, IVF, etc. Harris is equally bad on these issues, if not worse.
And yet, it is hard to interpret the GOP’s retreat from the culture war issues as anything other than tragic, and potentially politically catastrophic.
There are some who are arguing that the new platform doesn’t express the “true” views of the GOP, but rather that it is simply a political calculation, designed to ensure that the GOP wins at the ballot box in November. In other words, it’s a purely pragmatic political calculation.
However, this approach ignores two things. First, over the past few decades, the GOP has successfully won significant electoral victories. This happened not in spite of its strong pro-life and pro-family stance, but because of it. The GOP’s espousal of strong pro-life and pro-family values galvanized highly motivated socially conservative voters, who consistently showed up to the polls out of a desire to protect our culture. Even politically, it is a gamble whether this new platform will achieve the victory its framers are clearly hoping for.
Second, this approach ignores the fact that words matter. It is true that despite formally espousing a constitutional amendment protecting the preborn and supporting the true definition of marriage, the GOP did not make any significant progress on these issues. And yet, as long as that language remained in the GOP platform, it served as a powerful reminder that the culture war is not “settled,” and that even if our culture and politics had lost their way, there are certain immutable truths that cannot be put aside or ignored.
As one pro-life writer put it, “[E]liminating these [pro-life and pro-family] commitments is not merely a political concession but a moral one. It is a declaration to the American public that these debates are over.”
Abortion is THE ‘Preeminent’ Issue
In order to be truly just, any policy, platform, and discussion of law must protect the right to life for all human beings, including the most vulnerable, defenseless persons (i.e. the preborn, elderly, handicapped, sick, and dying), as well as the sacredness of marriage between one man and a woman. Anything contrary to this is unacceptable.
On the issue of abortion, in particular, we should remind ourselves that the U.S. bishops have consistently taught that it is the “preeminent” issue facing voters at the voting booth. The reason for this is obvious: no other issue has such high, life-and-death stakes. With hundreds of thousands of preborn children being slaughtered in our country every year, ending abortion tops the priority list.
The fact that the GOP platform now only condemns late-term abortion is indefensible and irrational. After all, how is it just or even logical to recognize human rights only for human beings of a certain size or development? Or how is it just or logical to recognize human rights only for human beings who live in a more privileged location than another, i.e., preborn children verse those who are born?
We are Catholic Voters in a Post-Christian World
I fear that the GOP platform shift once again underlines the fact that we are firmly living in a post-Christian world, where we cannot take for granted that our beliefs will be taken seriously by our political allies on every single moral issue.
This ought not lead to a retreat into political quietism, but rather to seeking authentic ways to transform minds and hearts, and ultimately society.
Many people thought that reversing Roe was impossible. The issue was “settled.” We proved that this was not so. Similarly, many people will argue that the GOP platform shift is “settled,” and that the party can never go back. We must prove, once again, that this need not be so!
We must resolutely confront a mindset and political machine controlled by elites that have advanced contraception, abortion-on-demand, same sex unions, and transgenderism. These cultural revolutionaries have successfully managed to turn public opinion firmly in their favor. Tragically, though most Americans favor some restrictions on abortion, the majority want it to be legal in at least some cases.
We must continue to press those in political office, federal and state, to advance our issues, regardless of which political party is in control. These issues affect all of us, “for erosion of respect for the life of any individual or group in society necessarily diminishes respect for all life,” the bishops assert. Hence, we must ensure that our political leaders hear our voices, loud and clear. We must be clamoring for them to unapologetically and forthrightly defend the right to life of the preborn, the sacredness of marriage, the rights of parents, and the dignity of the family, and to protect the vulnerable from euthanasia and other grave threats to the life and dignity of the human person.
This article has been reprinted with permission and can be found at hli.org/2024/08/words-actions-matter-abortion-2024-election.