Republicans approve platform with strict anti-abortion language

Daily News Article — Posted on September 4, 2012

NOTE: A platform is a political party’s formal statement of its basic principles, objectives, and positions on major issues.

(by Lucy Madison, CBSNews.com) – …The Republican Party on [August 21] approved a 2012 party platform that calls for a constitutional amendment effectively banning abortion, and which does not provide exceptions for victims of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother. …

The party platform states that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”

“We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the 14th Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage,” says the platform. “At its core abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life. Women deserve better than abortion.”

Cases of rape and incest or in which the mother’s life is in danger are not addressed in the platform, which implies there are no exceptions in those cases.

The National Right to Life Committee [NRLC], a pro-life group, lauded [praised] the vote and declared the GOP [Republican Party] “the party of life.”

“The language adopted today makes a strong stand supporting the most vulnerable members of our society,” said National Right to Life president Carol Tobias, in a statement. “We applaud the Republican Party and the dedicated members of the platform committee for reaffirming and renewing their efforts on behalf of mothers and their unborn children.”

Abortion rights advocates, on the other hand, blasted the platform and called for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to renounce it.

“Today, the Republican Party demonstrated again why Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are wrong for women in the U.S. The party’s committee platform approved an anti-abortion plank that champions a human life amendment to the U.S. Constitution without mentioning any exception for rape, incest or preservation of the health or life of the woman,” said [National Organization of Women] NOW president Terry O’Neill, in a statement. “Yet within the past 24 hours Romney-Ryan have indicated support for rape, incest and life of the woman exceptions to abortion restrictions. So, which is it? If in fact these candidates do support such exceptions, they should renounce the party’s failure to include them in its 2012 platform.”

Romney has said he would not oppose abortion in instances of rape… His position, however, puts him at odds with the official GOP party platform.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate, appears more ideologically in line with the GOP platform language than the former Massachusetts governor: Ryan holds a 100 percent voting record with the National Right to Life Committee, and as far back as his 1998 campaign is described as finding abortion acceptable only if the life of the mother is in danger. The Romney campaign has suggested, however, that Ryan’s views would take a backseat to Romney’s in a Romney-Ryan administration.

Former GOP presidential nominee John McCain had at one point attempted to amend the party language to include exceptions for rape and incest and to protect the life of the mother, but his attempts were met with protest and he eventually backed off.

Originally published at cbsnews.com on Aug. 21st. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from cbsnews.com.

Background

PARTY PLATFORMS:

Every four years, the major parties hold a national convention to nominate a presidential and vice presidential candidate. They also meet to approve a party platform of issues and positions upon which the candidates will run.
A party platform is a set of principles, goals, and strategies designed to address pressing political issues. Each party's platform is broken down into "planks," or declarations that speak to each specific issue.
Party platforms and their planks are very important to the electoral process: They give the candidates a clear political position with which they can campaign. They give voters a sense of what the candidates believe in, the issues they think are important, and how - if elected - they will address them. (from crf-usa.org/election-central/political-parties-platforms.html)

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Republican party view of life and marriage, as described in the 2012 Party Platform found at: gop.com/2012-republican-platform_home

Under the topic "We the People: A Restoration of Constitutional Government":

The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life (14th bullet point down):
Faithful to the “self-evident” truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment, including food and water, from people with disabilities, including newborns, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose active and passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Republican leadership has led the effort to prohibit the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion and permitted States to extend health care coverage to children before birth. We urge Congress to strengthen the Born Alive Infant Protection Act by enacting appropriate civil and criminal penalties on healthcare providers who fail to provide treatment and care to an infant who survives an abortion, including early induction delivery where the death of the infant is intended. We call for legislation to ban sex-selective abortions – gender discrimination in its most lethal form – and to protect from abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain; and we applaud U.S. House Republicans for leading the effort to protect the lives of pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia. We call for a ban on the use of body parts from aborted fetuses for research. We support and applaud adult stem cell research to develop lifesaving therapies, and we oppose the killing of embryos for their stem cells. We oppose federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

We also salute the many States that have passed laws for informed consent, mandatory waiting periods prior to an abortion, and health-protective clinic regulation. We seek to protect young girls from exploitation through a parental consent requirement; and we affirm our moral obligation to assist, rather than penalize, women challenged by an unplanned pregnancy. We salute those who provide them with counseling and adoption alternatives and empower them to choose life, and we take comfort in the tremendous increase in adoptions that has followed Republican legislative initiatives.

A Sacred Contract: Defense of Marriage (3rd bullet point down):
...We reaffirm our support for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. We applaud the citizens of the majority of States which have enshrined in their constitutions the traditional concept of marriage, and we support the campaigns underway in several other States to do so.