Leading conservative and pro-life voices raised a ruckus over the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) lack of a more explicit preborn defense in its party platform. And they’re understandably dismayed; it’s the first time in almost 40 years that this kind of language was excluded from the GOP’s vision statement. However, when you consider the electoral landscape, one thing becomes clear: the RNC and the Trump campaign are playing the long game.
In poker, the world’s best players don’t play their hands; they play the person across the table. Their adversary, whether they know it or not, will give clues as to whether they’re holding a winning hand or a whole lot of nothing.
The Democrats flash their cards at every opportunity: they’re all in on abortion. The Harris campaign has no other cards to play – the economy is in shambles, our southern border is a mess, and the world is on fire. This is where the focus of the GOP Platform seems to be – and maybe rightly so.
Like any smart poker player, the Trump campaign and the RNC are not getting baited into playing their opponent’s hand.
Yet, this real-politick approach doesn’t change the fact that abortion is the biggest human rights issue of our day. Recent and unfortunate comments by the Donald Trump’s son, Eric Trump, compared America’s problems to a crumbling house, likening abortion to a “spot on the wall in the basement.”
Abortion isn’t just a dent in the crown molding – it’s an entire basement, main floor, and attic packed to the brim with the corpses of dead children. In other words, over 65 million dead babies in 50 years and counting.
In this election, Republicans can’t ignore the issue outright – they need to bravely and boldly call out the extreme and limitless abortion on demand policies of the Democrats. It’s not only morally right - it’s politically smart. The Democrats are wildly out of step with what ordinary Americans want – especially among the all too critical voting bloc for the Democrats, the Youth Vote.
A Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement 2024 YouGov Poll showed that only 9 percent of young voters supported the Democratic Party’s radical agenda of abortion through all nine months without limits, up to and including infanticide.
However, there’s a creeping narrative that the absence of strong party platform language on preborn lives would mean a future Trump Administration would refuse to stand up and defend preborn lives in law and service
But there are far more reasons to be hopeful than worried.
The Republican Party’s new platform has explicit language around the 14th Amendment’s role in protecting ALL LIFE. When it was revealed, Students for Life Action (SFLAction) issued a statement, saying “the most significant contribution that the GOP platform makes for LIFE comes in celebrating the fact that the 14th Amendment ‘guarantees’ legal protection for the preborn.”
For two years, Students for Life of America (SFLA) has championed and pushed for that exact reality. With Roe gone, the human rights of all Americans – born and preborn – should be anchored again in the 14th Amendment. This is a victory.
Also, during Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance’s acceptance speech, the Vice President hopeful said, “Social conservatives have a seat at this table, and they always will so long as I have any influence in this party and President Trump, I know, agrees.” Vance’s own rags to riches story stands as a rebuke to the oft-said arguments for abortion: that the economically poor should kill their children if they can’t take care of them.
Even though the Republican Party has been home to pro-life voters for almost a generation, more needs to be done to show they are still welcome. Ensuring abortion is unthinkable in our lifetime is a marathon, not a sprint. The beginning of the fight was destroying Roe v. Wade, and preborn lives still matter to our GOP friends – and that there are pro-life champions who will join the future Trump administration.
What is absolutely certain, however, is that preborn lives are at far greater risk without having former President Trump in the White House.
The Biden-Harris administration is the most radically pro-abortion presidency in history with other extremists waiting in the wings. A potential second term with President Harris at the helm would be even more unhinged; Democrats would try to pack the U.S. Supreme Court, get rid of the filibuster, and codify something far worse than Roe v. Wade as law of the land again, ensuring limitless abortion from coast to coast.
The Democrats are increasingly desperate, replacing their own candidate at the eleventh hour, and frantically visiting swing states on an abortion apologetics tour. They’re holding a bad hand and are running low on chips.
While there’s every reason to feel confident and hopeful about our odds, there’s still a risk of creating divisions and disenfranchising the conservative, pro-life voting base that is needed to win in November.
The pro-life movement is holding a winning hand – but even that can become a losing one if it’s played poorly.
Mattison Brooks is the Online Editor at Students for Life of America. Follow him on Twitter at @RealMBrooks.
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