The Republican platform is likely to be amended this summer to reflect President Donald Trump’s position that abortion policy should be left to the states — a departure from decades of party doctrine, two sources told NOTUS. And anti-abortion activists are already raising the alarm.
“Some of the former president’s statements in the past few months have us very concerned,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told NOTUS.
The Republican Party’s platform has contained language since 1980 calling for the “protection of the right to life for unborn children” through a constitutional amendment. The current version, which was last revised in the 2016 Republican National Convention, states that the party supports “a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the [14th] Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.” The platform calls on Congress to pass at least a 20-week federal ban.