GOP, please don't betray your own platform
Politicians pander. Platforms shouldn’t.
Each Party’s manifesto is an articulation of their firmly held beliefs. The Democratic Party will “oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers” to abortion. We see this belief carried out in every federal and state law proposed and passed by Dems: unlimited abortion throughout pregnancy for any reason. The Republican Party, to the contrary, emphasizes the Declaration of Independence’s “inalienable right to life” and has called for a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution to protect the unborn.
The Democrats’ platform demands funding for Planned Parenthood and their abortion “services”. Republicans fully oppose taxpayer funding of the $2 billion abortion business, except for actual healthcare (e.g. breast cancer exams, pre-natal care, STD testing/treatment, and other services that are all drastically plummeting at Planned Parenthood).
The Democrats believe some humans are merely property that can be bought, sold, and destroyed at the whim of others. Republicans don’t. It’s why the GOP platform emphatically states: “We urge all states and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts.”
The contrast couldn’t be more pronounced. Democrats are the Pro-Abortion Party. Republicans are the Anti-Abortion Party. Yet some forces want to blur those lines and dilute the principled stand the GOP has held since its inception. The Party founded on the belief that we’re all created equal is still fighting the Party that refuses to believe all humans are persons and therefore afforded the protections of the Constitution. Remember, it was the Democratic Party that was willing to go to war to protect the inhumane institution of slavery.
In 1856, Democrats declared in their platform: “Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences.” Yes. Seeing everyone as having inherent and equal value is a dangerous thing to a political party that is still blind to this truth. When people tell you who they are, believe them. Sadly, too few bother to read party platforms and choose to be duped by a leftist news media that lies about everything (well, except its delusional and blatant hatred of conservatives and those with a Biblical worldview).
Just like the 7-2 supremely wrong Roe decision, the Democratic Party also hailed the 7-2 Dred Scott decision in 1857. That ruling — one of the worst judicial travesties in American history — declared that “Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a federal territory” and that our Founder’s proclamation of being “created equal” didn’t apply to a certain group of human beings: slaves. Sounds familiar, in a post-Dobbs America, where Roe was overturned and sadly the injustice of abortion is being decided in a state-by-state basis. A certain group of human beings is, once again, violently denied constitutional rights.
Thank Heaven for those Radical Republicans who refused to budge on what they believed about slavery, despite temporary legislative setbacks and even a Civil War. Today’s GOP pales in comparison to those who knew who they were and what they believed, no matter the political consequences. Stop fearing what the Left is cheering!
As someone whose ancestors were put in chains and treated inhumanely, I don’t want politicians who are blown to and fro by every new wind of polling. As an adoptee and adoptive father, I’ll always protect the defenseless. While the Democratic Party revels in killing our Posterity (see here, here, and here), why in the world do conservatives make apologies and excuses for defending the most vulnerable among us?
The 14th Amendment affirms that Life is our unquestionable right.“No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” This includes the women preyed upon, harmed and even killed by a predatory abortion industry and the millions of children aborted for profit as a result of our federal government failing in its most fundamental duties. The Preamble to our Constitution clearly states: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
This America, a beacon of Life, Liberty and Justice to the rest of the world, is meant for us and our children and our children’s children.
Life is not a states’ rights issue, any more than slavery, women’s right to vote, or Jim Crow laws were. It took federal action to defeat the unequal legal patchwork that had been sloppily made by a lack of moral courage. And it will take that same certitude to end the nationwide violent discrimination against the most marginalized — the ones who cannot protest or vote or curry any favor.
Tragically, the GOP Platform committee has just caved to those who want to shift the Republican stance. It removed language from the upcoming 2024 Platform calling for a Human Life Amendment, seemingly to assuage those who think the inhumanity of slavery abortion is a states’ rights issue. I’m glad slavery abolitionists didn’t settle for the middle ground by accepting the expansion of slavery into other states. The only way to guarantee equality was to ensure that each person was equally free from the bondage and violence of slavery in every state. The same applies to abortion.
Don’t turn away from your DNA, GOP. Speak the truth. Value all life. And fight for what’s right.
Ryan Bomberger is the Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of The Radiance Foundation. He is happily married to his best friend, Bethany, who is the Executive Director of Radiance. They are adoptive parents with four awesome kiddos. Ryan is an Emmy Award-winning creative professional, factivist, international public speaker and author of NOT EQUAL: CIVIL RIGHTS GONE WRONG. He loves illuminating that every human life has purpose.