There's a GOP battle brewing over the party's abortion platform

In case you haven’t noticed, Donald Trump has been a wee bit cagey when it comes to abortion lately. In 2016, he rode forced-birth fever to the White House after promising to put anti-abortion justices on the Supreme Court (and ensure scandalous, libertine women are punished for getting abortions). But in the wake of the court’s Dobbs decision, he’s suddenly found anti-religion (or anti-whatever-right-wing-evangelicals-are-babbling-about, anyway).

In the latest sign that abortion, a longtime wedge issue, is now dividing Republicans, Politico is reporting that a fight is brewing over the 2024 GOP platform, and the anti-abortion true believers are increasingly alarmed at what’s happening.

Two hardline anti-abortion delegates to next week’s GOP platform committee have been stripped of their positions, according to several members of the Republican National Committee, underscoring a broader fear among evangelicals and other social conservatives that the party is poised to moderate its stance on abortion at the direction of former President Donald Trump.

The Trump campaign’s efforts to block the two South Carolina delegates from the platform committee and replace them with loyalists is described in several affidavits as “interference from paid RNC staff … to circumvent the will of the delegation.”

Wait, but people say they love Trump because he says what he means. Was he just pretending to be anti-abortion to get votes? And is he now throwing anti-abortionists under the bus … to get votes? Who could possibly be that cynical?

While running for the platform committee, the two South Carolina delegates, longtime party activist LaDonna Ryggs and former state party chair Chad Connelly, made clear they would not vote to “water down” the party’s positions on abortion, marriage or Israel, according to a person with knowledge of the comments and granted anonymity to speak freely.

Of course, Trump’s position on this or any other issue ultimately boils down to how it helps Trump. Trump might have the intellect of a sourdough starter, but he’s at least smart enough to recognize that abortion is now a losing issue for Republicans. So he’s doing what he usually does: Lying his ruddy ass off.

The story Trump tells is as simple as it is implausible: “Everyone” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, and he’s the guy who did it. And now the issue is with the states, where it belongs. And everything will work out perfectly. Pro-choicers and anti-abortionists will gather on verdant hilltops, hand in hand, alternately chanting “Abortion stops a beating heart!” and “Never again!”—in between choruses of “Kumbaya,” of course—before unanimously extolling the surpassing wisdom of Donald John Trump, the incandescent god-king who single-handedly solved the abortion issue for all time.

Meanwhile, Trump is trying to paint Democrats as the real extremists on abortion by risibly claiming they want children to be aborted after they’re born. And since every accusation Trump makes is really a confession, Eric may want to look into bolstering his security team. (For the record, no Democrats want to legalize abortion after birth. Anyway, Democrats are obviously doing it wrong. The way to deal with kids after they’re born is to cancel their health insurance out of spite, like Trump did to his gravely ill infant nephew in 1999.)

Unfortunately for Trump, things are unlikely to go the way he envisions, and the anti-abortion movement, which has been loudly agitating for change since Roe v. Wade was decided more than 50 years ago, is unlikely to skulk away quietly. Which means there’s a high potential for chaos and infighting in advance of the Republican National Convention.

“The problem isn’t just dampening enthusiasm. It’s also the fact that there’ll be a fight over it,” a Republican strategist who works with anti-abortion groups told Politico. “There will be a platform fight, and it’ll be the week before the convention when you don’t want a fight, you want unity. And it’ll be for everyone to see in Milwaukee. If I were on the inside of a campaign I would be saying, ‘I don’t want to give everybody this story.’”

Of course, in 2020, the Republican platform was literally just “TRUMP!” That was all they needed. If anyone had the temerity to press for details beyond that, the response was something like, “Well, look at him! His beatific glow! The winsome way he modulates his screams! He’s an elysian, golden Adonis!”

But now, the folks who brought him to the dance see him ogling other ladies—and they want assurances. Is the devil they sold their souls to still with them, or is he now wavering to the point where he loses their fawning support? Sure, anti-abortion evangelicals would rather die than vote for Biden, but in a close election, demoralizing the base by losing your backbone on the issue they arguably care most about could be the difference between winning and losing. Just ask Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, a grizzled old veteran of the culture wars. 

“Self-identified evangelical voters are roughly half of the entire Republican vote. And in some states, like Georgia, they’re about 60 percent of the entire Republican vote,” Reed told Politico. “When you’re talking about a presidential election that could well be decided by thousands of votes spread out over three or four states, anything that discourages the enthusiasm or turnout of base or faith-based voters will not be helpful.”

Meanwhile, Democrats have a simple, united message (“keep make abortion safe and legal”), the wind at their backs, and a candidate who hears their concerns. Ever since Dobbs, Biden has been promising to enshrine Roe’s protections into law if given a Congress he can work with. 

Daily Kos’ Joan McCarter neatly summed up the parties’ contrasting approaches in light of recent polling on the abortion issue. 

Republicans have created a disaster on abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. They have no message to justify their extreme forced birth positions. Their candidates are afraid to talk about it. And their standard bearer—convicted felon Donald Trump—can’t give a coherent statement about where he stands.

Meanwhile, Democrats are on offense, knowing public opinion is on their side.

New Gallup polling shows just how much the GOP needs to worry about abortion. Not only does it show a record high support for abortion rights, but it also shows that a record high percentage of voters—32%— say they’ll vote solely on the issue. That breaks down to 23% of pro-choice voters and just 8% of anti-abortion voters.

With his anti-choice Supreme Court appointments, Trump stabbed women in the front. Make no mistake, they know who’s holding the knife and which 2024 presidential candidate is more likely to twist it. Now he’s fixing to stab his evangelical supporters in the back. The only question is, will that be enough to snap them out of their cult-like Trump devotion and force them to go back to worshiping boring old Jesus? Seems unlikely given everything we’ve witnessed over the past eight years, but stranger things have happened.

So Trump is left with a muddled message that pleases exactly no one, while Democrats are sitting on a winning issue that galvanizes our base and has the potential to bring new voters to our side.

Time will tell, of course, but Trump is currently walking a political tightrope that he may not be able to lie himself off of. And that’s unequivocally good news for Biden. 

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