RNC Urges Republicans to Expose Democrats’ ‘Extreme’ Abortion Stance

Pro-life supporters celebrate outside the Supreme Court in Washington on June 24, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has affirmed its pro-life stance, urging GOP lawmakers and candidates to expose the Democratic Party’s “extreme position of supporting abortion on demand” for the 2024 election.

The GOP passed a resolution at its winter meeting on Friday that considers the Democrats’ support of late-term abortion in some states and for the purpose of gender selection or to avoid having a child with Down syndrome “a new relic of barbarism.”

Since the GOP’s inception in 1856, it has opposed what it called “the twin relics of barbarism,” which were slavery and polygamy.

“[T]he Democratic Party is now extreme, supporting abortion on-demand, up until birth, paid for by the taxpayer, putting their candidates far outside the mainstream,” the resolution states (pdf).

The resolution sought to remind GOP candidates, consultants, and political action committees about the party’s “proud heritage” and the need to actively challenge the Democrats’ stance on abortion in the 2024 elections.

The resolution emphasized the differences between the two parties on abortion and decried the faltering stance of some GOP candidates during the 2022 midterm elections.

“Instead of fighting back and exposing Democratic extremism on abortion, many Republican candidates failed to remind Americans of our proud heritage of challenging slavery, segregation, and the forces eroding the family and the sanctity of human life, thereby allowing Democrats to define our longtime position,” the resolution states.

The GOP criticized the Democratic Party for concealing its “extremism” and for “mischaracterizing and vilifying” pro-life Republican candidates during the 2022 midterm elections.

The Epoch Times contacted the Democratic National Committee for comment.

Pro-abortion activists chant while marching from City Hall to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Santa Monica, Calif., on July 16, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Republicans Urged to Pass ‘Strongest Pro-Life’ Laws

After the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling in June 2022, Democrats used abortion as a major talking point during the midterms, spending hundreds of millions on abortion-related ads.

Republicans believe that the Supreme Court exceeded its authority in 1973 when it struck down “life-protective laws” to make abortion legal nationwide, and consider the recent Dobbs decision to be a correction of this error.

The RNC also called on state and federal GOP lawmakers to pass “the strongest pro-life legislation possible—such as laws that acknowledge the beating hearts and experiences of pain in the unborn—underscoring the new relics of barbarism the Democratic Party represents as we approach the 2024 cycle.”

Some Republican-led states have “heartbeat” laws prohibiting abortions at six weeks. Opponents have argued that many women don’t realize they’re pregnant at this gestational age.

The Republican Party has supported the right to life of unborn children under the U.S. Constitution, and its 2004 platform made clear that Republicans embrace the idea that “the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”

A crowd gathers as the Republican National Committee reelects Ronna McDaniel for a fourth two-year term as chairwoman after a three-day meeting at a luxury resort in Dana Point, Calif., on Jan. 27, 2023. (Mei Li/The Epoch Times)

‘Bold Message’

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, which published the resolution, said the GOP is sending a strong message to its candidates and campaigns that they must be aggressive and differentiate themselves from Democrats on the issue of abortion.

“The RNC’s pro-life resolution sends a bold message to GOP candidates, campaigns, and consultants that in order to win in 2024, they must stay on offense by drawing a strong contrast and exposing Democratic extremism,” Dannenfelser said in a statement.

“In 2022, too many GOP candidates used the ‘Ostrich Strategy’ in which they put their heads in the sand, pretended the issue of abortion didn’t exist, and let Democrats spend hundreds of millions of dollars distorting their pro-life positions and defining them as extremists,” she continued.

The resolution was sponsored by RNC Committeewoman Tamara Scott, who urged all Republican candidates to embrace the GOP’s firm stance on abortion.

Scott said the GOP has maintained its support for the constitutional right to life of all unborn children since 1976, and pledged to keep doing so at the local, state, and federal levels.

“We are proud to reaffirm this decades-long commitment especially in wake of the Dobbs decision in which the voices of pro-life Americans can finally be heard in the law,“ she said. ”We urge all Republican candidates to embrace our party’s proud pro-life heritage and expose the Democrat Party for their abortion extremism. This is a key ingredient for GOP victory in 2024.”

The resolution invokes the principles of the Declaration of Independence, which came before the institution of the U.S. government, that “all human beings are created equal and endowed by the Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

In addition to reminding Republicans about the GOP’s original platform of embracing a public order that rejects the “twin relics of barbarism,” the resolution further mentions that most Americans support limits on abortion. It is only a “fringe minority” that supports no limits on abortion, the resolution states.