A Shift in Republican politics over abortion?
Several decisions by Republican operatives and politicians show a party that’s trying to come to grips with the unpopularity of the antiabortion cause.
(Republican congressional nominee Matt Gunderson has taken a position supporting abortion access, though he hopes it is used ‘rarely.’)
I’ve been monitoring how Republicans at the state and federal levels have addressed or attacked abortion access since the inception of this newsletter. But there’s been a dramatic shift in how enthusiastically they’ve embraced anti-abortion causes because of the increased likelihood of political losses.
Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump has sought to avoid the issue altogether and has forsaken Project 2025, the conservative manifesto calling for antiabortion policies, in large part because he doesn’t want opposition to abortion to cost him the election. His treatment of the issue has alienated much of the antiabortion movement, including Randall Terry, who decided to run for president himself. Trump has sought to keep that vote by saying he appointed the judges to overturn Roe while promising moderate women that he wouldn’t restrict abortion medication.
Now, the Republican National Committee will consider whether to remove abortion bans from their plank. According to ABC News, the Republican platform since the 1980s has articulated support for a constitutional amendment that would assert the sanctity and protection of human life, extending to unborn children. Trump wants the party to reflect his values on the issue.
It was always the rare part that irritated abortion rights leaders. Writers and activists later complained that it stigmatized abortion and that it simply should have been safe and legal without the rare added in.
While Clinton was always pragmatic about rhetoric and meticulous in shaping messaging, his policies on abortion were far more progressive in his time than he often gets credit for.
It’s important to note that Gunderson’s position differs from Clinton’s. Though rhetorically, the “rare” part is the same, Bill Clinton’s policies reflected a desire to reduce the need for abortions by creating environments more conducive to child-rearing. He lifted the moratorium on fetal tissue research. He lifted restrictions on RU-486. He allowed abortions in military hospitals, according to a timeline of his presidency kept by the national archives.
Clinton also signed the Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances Act, which Randall Terry recently said had broken the antiabortion movement’s back in a documentary I watched about Bill Baird.
Additionally, he also orchestrated a savvy political campaign to shoot down the partial-birth abortion ban by gathering a group of women who needed an abortion later in pregnancy because of fetal deformities and having them testify in Congress against the bill. Though Clinton and his allies successfully orchestrated it, the bill became law under President George W. Bush.
At the core of Clinton’s desire to reduce abortions was an effort to increase birth control access. President Clinton and his wife Hillary, who later sought pro-choice legislation as a New York Senator, wanted to emphasize that as the preferred method of family planning.
With my Clinton historical aside complete, I’ll return to the issue at hand–which is Republicans running away from the antiabortion cause due to the accurate realization that it would lead to defeat.
Gunderson is not pushing for any of those things. He’s not a champion of birth control access. He doesn’t support repealing the Hyde Amendment, as Hillary Clinton advocated in her 2016 campaign. So, their use of rare when it comes to discussing abortion differs.
Still, the concession by a Republican candidate in the primary to support abortion access signifies a historic shift that abortion rights activists and leaders should appreciate. Part of what had happened politically was that antiabortion leaders and advocates had co-opted the Republican primary so that virtually no pro-choice candidate could get through. There would occasionally be popular Republicans like Tom Ridge who would support abortion access. But by and large, they had to adapt to get the nomination by vilifying abortion providers. Is that no longer true? Time will bear that out.