Will Pro-Life Ohioans Be Politically Homeless?
BY MATT URBAS
STATEWIDE - Between the turmoil following Saturday night’s attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump, and the ongoing exuberance at the Republican National Convention this week, delegates to the convention approved a new platform dramatically changing the party’s stance on abortion, causing anger and worry among pro-life Ohioans about what that means for their future in the party.
“We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights,” the 2024 platform reads.
In contrast, the 2016 national platform for the party advocated for “a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”
“For the first time, the Republican party has removed a call to ban abortion at the federal level. That has been in every party platform since the 1980s,” said Mark Harrington, founder and president of Columbus-based pro-life advocacy group Created Equal. “This is just a way of sidestepping the issue, because Donald Trump thinks the pro-life position is a liability for him if he’s running for president, and for all the down-ballot candidates. I think he’s wrong on that, but it’s a calculation he’s made.”
The RNC platform also mentions that the party will “oppose late term abortion,” without mentioning either what it considers to be ‘late term’ nor specific ways in which the party will oppose it. The platform also supports access to birth control and in-vitro fertilization.
In addition to the change on abortion, the 2024 RNC platform omits the longstanding plank calling marriage between one man and one woman as the “foundation for a free society,” a move seen in Chrisitian conservative circles as another betrayal. Earlier GOP platforms called for the reversal of Obergefell v Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court decision which required all states to license and recognize same-sex marriage.
“I find it ironic that the platform says the states can decide when it comes to abortion, but has nothing to say about states’ rights on marriage,” said a registered Ohio Republican who asked not to be identified. “I feel like the party has always kind of taken pro-life conservatives for granted, but this was just a slap in the face.”
The change to the platform is particularly troubling for Ohio pro-life advocates. Last November, Ohioans passed a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights with nearly 57% of the vote, although turnout in the election was less than fifty percent. Now there are concerns in the pro-life movement that some in the Ohio Republican party will take the lead from the national party and eliminate mention of abortion from the state platform as well.
In November 2023, the Ohio Republican Party platform subcommittee passed a draft state platform that removed references to the preborn and their right to life. Meeting notes taken by a member of the subcommittee show that Dave Johnson proposed the language with Penny Martin seconding the motion. According to a report by State Central Committee member Jessica Franz, twelve members of the platform subcommittee voted to remove the pro-life language, 3 voted against the removal, and 6 were absent.
When the draft was circulated prior to the full meeting of the committee, Franz and seven other members wrote to the platform subcommittee to express their disappointment regarding the platform as a whole, and specifically the removal of references to the unborn.
“We strongly disagree with this morally and ethically and find it politically unwise. The Ohio Republicans have a supermajority at a level never seen before in Ohio, all the while strongly advocating for the unborn. Changing course now for the sake of winning more elections would be contradictory,” they wrote.
At the full meeting of the state central committee in December, committee member Lisa Cooper proposed amending the proposed platform to once again mention protection of the unborn. The motion passed with only one dissenting vote, which according to Franz’ report came from Dave Johnson.
But with the shift at the national level coming at the behest of the Trump campaign, power players in the state party such as Jim Dicke and Jane Timken, whose rumored donations to the Trump campaign were rewarded with his endorsement as Ohio delegates to the Republican National Committee, may be emboldened in the push among moderates to eliminate the pro-life stance from the Ohio party platform. Timken is considered one of the likely candidates to replace Senator J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, if Trump were to win in November.
