But they all want the same thing – national abortion bans and personhood — and they are sure Trump will deliver
As Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton pointed out, the anti-abortion advocates who are loudly complaining about the supposed watered-down language of the RNC platform are “just playing the roles of anti-abortion activists for their flocks to show that they haven't given up the fight” and will “all be on board the Trump train with full enthusiasm when the time comes.”
Wallbuilders' David Barton said the quiet part out loud when he asserted on the Victory Channel program Flashpoint that even though the amended platform may appear to have softened the party's views on abortion, Trump’s past actions speak loudly about where he stands on the issue.
"The pro-life groups still say this is the same guy and he’s going to give us the same kind of judges” who have curtailed abortion rights across the country, he said.
Just this past March, the majority of House Republicans endorsed a 15-week national abortion ban with zero exceptions for sexual assault and incest, demonstrating a desire to criminalize abortions already shared on the state level. And with personhood statutes and case law increasingly gathering in strength across Republican states, the new platform language still tacitly recognizes this extremist end goal of the party.
The RNC platform committee is also dominated by individuals whose organizations helped draft the Project 2025 blueprint, which advocates for, among other things, extreme rollbacks of reproductive rights and access to reproductive health care. Some members of the Family Research Council’s Platform Integrity Project — which is focused on the RNC platform — are also tied to Project 2025.
Mainstream media were unwise to initially buy into the platform’s apparent softer stance on abortion.
As The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie wrote, “The Republican Party coalition is still grounded in the grass roots activity of anti-abortion groups and the ideological ambitions of movement jurists and politicians. The platform makes no real difference in their efforts to ban abortion and limit a woman’s right to live a free life and pursue her own vision of the good.”
And as author Jessica Valenti argued, “Taking out language about a national ban doesn't mean shit when they can use Comstock to enact a backdoor ban.” Anti-abortion activists are weaponizing the Comstock Act, a 150-plus-year-old statute that prohibited the mailing of anything “indecent, filthy, or vile” or “intended for producing abortion,” in an attempt to revoke the FDA approval of medication abortion mifepristone. The Supreme Court has halted the anti-abortion challenge to medication abortion access, at least for now.
Much of Trump and right-wing media's strategy around abortion has been to obfuscate and downplay their position and policy goals on the issue as they reckon with the unpopularity of their abortion agenda -- mainstream media outlets shouldn't lend them a hand.
