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Many of us in the pro-life movement have been aware for some time that the GOP’s 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump is not exactly pro-life. Nonetheless, the news about removing the pro-life plank from the Republican National Committee 2024 platform came as an unpleasant surprise.
The platform is a document of capitulation to Trump’s shallow pragmatism on the issue of prenatal justice. In it, the former pro-life party explicitly abandons the goal of outlawing abortion at the federal level, singling out “Late-Term Abortion” as the only thing worthy of opposition. The GOP also pledges to support IVF, without giving any thought to its regulation. In addition, Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance supports broad access to abortion pills, joining the GOP presidential candidate in misrepresenting the latest US Supreme Court decision on mifepristone.
The US political landscape now consists of two major pro-choice parties: the Republican Party has just been transformed into a retro-Democratic Party, while the current Democratic Party is the absolute champion of completely unrestricted access to abortion.
Things are hardly going to change for the better in the years to come: without at least nominal pro-life ideals embedded in their party platform, many GOP politicians might quickly lose the motivation to keep on pushing for legal protection of nascent human life in their states. One by one, the states would succumb under pressure and become pro-choice. Republican legislators might adopt an oblique pro-life strategy, supporting more robust life-affirming welfare policies, but judging from their track record so far (with positive shifts almost solely thanks to tremendous behind-the-scenes efforts from pro-lifers), I would not count on it.
For someone living in Europe, this sounds eerily familiar. Stripped of any political influence, and severely constrained by the overwhelming pro-choice consensus across the political spectrum, European pro-lifers are an endangered species. And they think like one, as well: the vast majority are reactionary and often anti-secular. Meanwhile, prenatal justice floats as a mere afterthought in the heads of vaguely pro-life politicians primarily driven by illiberal, anti-immigration, and nationalist pro-natalist impulses.
This same situation will now, more likely than not, happen in the United States as well. Ever since the late 1980s, the US political frame for prenatal justice has been relentlessly shifting towards the right. Pro-life Democrats, from Gov. Robert Casey to endless others, have been either ostracized or pushed into near-total quietism on the issue — which is exactly what’s happening now in the Republican Party. Meanwhile, a large pro-life coalition took a firm hold on the right, combining Evangelical politics with Catholic bioethics.
And yet, pro-lifers resisting this ideological mold have persevered throughout the years: Democrats for Life of America, various pro-life feminist organizations such as Feminists Choosing Life of New York and New Wave Feminists, Secular Pro-Life, Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, the American Solidarity Party – to name a few, in addition to us at Rehumanize International. The majority of these organizations are part of the Consistent Life Network. It is their wisdom, courage, and persistence that is now critically needed.
This has been the missing piece in the European puzzle. Whole-life ethos is almost nowhere to be found here, except in places with a Catholic pacifist tradition such as Ireland. The consistent life approach, with its wholesome ethical principles and its non-partisan, diverse, and compassionate vision that upholds freedom and dignity for all, now amounts to the crucial element that may save the pro-life movement from falling into the pit of reactionarism.
Pro-lifers will either diversify or face marginalization by disappearing into a preservation park for the religious and/or submerging their pro-life beliefs into the waters of increasingly eugenic and racist post-Christian right.
Therefore, it is of utmost importance to boldly communicate consistent life principles and work on cultivating and uplifting a non-traditional and secular pro-life base. Our values are now critical, both from within the movement, to keep it open and just, and towards those on the outside, to inspire and convince.
For example, both in the United States and Europe, many Christians on the left have been disillusioned with pro-life strategies and their underlying ideologies, believing that it is currently impossible to legally protect humans starting from conception without unleashing a terrible systemic injustice. There is some truth in that. Regrettably, these critics are typically unwilling to commit to being pro-life and work on preventing such injustice from within the movement.
I believe that witnessing and sharpening consistent life principles is the only way that might resonate with the people in this camp. Having the courage to see things from their perspective while firmly holding our ground might benefit us too.
Having arrived on the verge of success after Dobbs, only to be dispersed into numerous state battle-fields and now being deserted by its main political vehicle, the pro-life movement will inevitably go through a long phase of reckoning. This almost-victory has revealed many weak spots: lack of skills necessary to present pro-life positions to a broader public; mediocre parent-friendly and other social policies; general lack of interest in social justice among conservative pro-life legislators; lack of communication between legislators and medical experts when drafting legislation; inadequacies of pro-life medical guidelines; lack of pro-life mediators on the ground in public healthcare; harms of the “abortion is never medically necessary” approach; carceralists in the base; insufficient awareness of ethical issues concerning reprotechnology, etc.
There are many things we’ll need to work on in the future. Now that we are free, no longer constrained by any major party, it’s time to build new coalitions. It’s Consistent Life Ethic time. Engage, find common ground, challenge, adapt, advise, dissent, dignify, build bridges, discuss, divest, support, criticize, inspire, liberate. In a word: rehumanize.