RNC chairman: The Republican Party won't abandon its anti-abortion message

MILWAUKEE – Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley assured some of the convention’s most religious attendees Thursday that the party is not abandoning its anti-abortion message.

“I am here to tell you today that as long as I am chair of the Republican National Committee, this party is going to be a pro-life, pro-family, pro-faith party,” Whatley told the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s prayer breakfast.

He received a standing ovation for the message – one of the only such responses in nearly three hours of speeches from politicians and faith leaders, including GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Whatley's comments come amid the first presidential election cycle since Roe v. Wade was overturned, creating a patchwork of different levels of abortion access nationwide.

Some anti-abortion advocates and faith groups have argued it is now time for federal abortion restrictions. But former President Donald Trump has said he would not sign a federal abortion ban in a second term and that regulations should be left up to the states.

That has left some hardline conservative Christian groups – which found their cause ascendant during Trump's first term – frustrated. They say the RNC and Trump are softening their language, if not their stance entirely, ahead of November.

The RNC's platform released last week did not call for a national abortion ban, to the chagrin of groups like Pro-Life Wisconsin, which protested outside of the RNC earlier this week. The only specific abortion policy outlined in the platform is that states are “free to pass laws” protecting a right to life and that Republicans “will oppose late term abortion.”

Whatley told attendees to the prayer breakfast that the committee “put together a very strong pro-life platform.”

While Trump's campaign has sought to sidestep most mentions of abortion this week, hardline anti-abortion activists still think the GOP should push for a national abortion ban, which most Americans oppose.

Meanwhile, religious groups like the Southern Baptist Convention have called on Republicans to oppose in-vitro fertilization, an explicit and unpopular position GOP leaders have balked at even as fetal personhood legislation, which could create a pathway to giving full legal rights to embryos, has bubbled up in various states. The RNC platform says the party supports access to IVF and birth control.

Whatley sought to assuage any concerns on the issue at the conservative prayer breakfast on Thursday.

"I am proud to be the most pro-life chair in the history of the Republican Party. I am proud to work for the president, who has been the most pro-life president in the history of this country," he said.

But multiple attendees who attended the breakfast said they’re ok with the state-by-state strategy. For some, it was a matter of small-government principles.

Alison Powers, 66, is a delegate from Waxhaw, North Carolina and chair of the Union County Republican Party. She said the party remains “very pro-life” but that it’s appropriate for states to determine how they want to handle the issue.

“It’s not in the constitution so it shouldn’t be a federal issue,” she said. “That’s the way it is for everything – even gun rights, they’re different by state because that’s how it was meant to be.”

Others saw it as a call to action to change hearts and minds to create a more sustainable policy, even if they would prefer a national ban.

Linda Montgomery, a delegate from South Dakota, said she’d prefer that an abortion ban be “the rule of the land.” But she said Trump is telling the grassroots to organize people to restrict abortion in their own states

“Because what happens if you don’t do that? And you say ‘no it’s going to be the whole United States,’” she said. “The states that are not invested, you get this division.”

Charlie Buckels, 78, a delegate from Lafayette, Louisiana, also said sending the power to regulate abortion back to the states is “a huge sea change in the right direction, where people can vote their own heart at a basic level. I believe the federal government should, in many cases, stay out of our lives.”

He would prefer a nationwide abortion ban, but “I am really happy having it even at the state level right now. Because once we do that we start changing minds … and maybe one day we will have a national mindset to say we are solidly a pro-life nation.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: RNC chairman: The Republican Party won't abandon its anti-abortion message