Family Research Council’s blog, The Washington Stand, published an article praising vice presidential nominee JD Vance for discussing the “entirely reasonable, and too-modest, pro-life protection” of a 15-week minimum national ban for abortion and laying the groundwork for a future Republican president to sign such legislation.
Family Research Center is on the advisory board of Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation-led transition plan for the next GOP presidential administration. The effort involves more than 100 partner organizations, and the staffing and policy recommendations in its nearly 900-page policy book represent a major threat to democracy.
During the October 1 debate, Vance argued that a GOP-proposed 15-week nationwide abortion ban is really a “federal minimum standard,” though it is entirely a distinction without a difference. Writing in Vanity Fair, Bess Levin notes this is part of “the very sneaky way” that some on the right have adopted to discuss rolling back reproductive rights:
The Washington Stand applauded Vance for disingenuously separating the terms “minimum standard” and “ban,” arguing that a national minimum standard cannot be considered a ban because it would only affect a “minuscule number” of the total abortions done in the United States. “Americans of all stripes should thank Vance for asserting that words have meaning,” the piece claims, adding (emphasis added):
The Washington Stand also quotes anti-abortion activist Ryan Bomberger, who said that GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham’s “Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions” Act that would ban abortion after 15 weeks, “may be a starting point, but it’s not an end point.”
Minimum standards for legal abortions have historically been referred to as ban, and anti-abortion activists have promoted an incremental approach to eventually make abortion “unthinkable.”
The Family Research Council has previously taken a hardline stance, with FRC President Tony Perkins calling on Republicans to commit to an “inflexible” anti-abortion position. Family Research Council and Project 2025 have both pushed extreme anti-abortion agendas and have supported limiting other reproductive rights such as contraception and in vitro fertilization.
