The Republican National Committee is planning to reduce its platform by roughly half and refocus the pro-life provisions to treat abortion as a state issue, according to delegate Tony Perkins, chairman of Family Research Council Action.
“The life issue is changing. They’re scaling everything back, cutting the platform in about half — which when you start cutting it in half, you’re going to start losing something,” Perkins told The Federalist. “They’ve been very forthright on this, that the life plank is going to be substantially changed so that it reflects where the former president is, on this being a state issue.”
The party’s current platform includes provisions that call for the protection of unborn children based upon the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution’s Fifth and 14th Amendments.
“The call that has been in the platform since the mid ’80s for a human life amendment is not in the document,” Perkins said.
The 2016 platform, also used in 2020, is 58 pages.
“According to what they communicated to delegates,” Perkins said, “it could be half that, could be less.”
Recent rumors and calls to shorten the platform have been concerning pro-life advocates something like this might happen.
“We have heard that the pro-life language, which has been basically the same since 1984, will likely change or be cut,” Kris Ullman, president of Eagle Forum, told The Federalist Wednesday morning.
Danielle Alvarez, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, told The Federalist on Tuesday the platform committee had not yet decided on any language.
