WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Strength & Dignity: GOP Goes Soft On Abortion

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Michaela responds to the recent GOP compromise on abortion and marriage. She discusses how Christians should respond to this discouraging waver and reminds them where ultimate hope is found.��

Hello and welcome to Strength and Dignity. This is Michaela Estruth, and you're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Well, it's been a very busy, crazy week in the United States, even a crazy month. Since the presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, there has just been headline after headline, almost a new update every single day, especially in the past two weeks with the attempted assassination on Donald Trump, and then President Joe Biden withdrawing from the race and endorsing Kamala Harris. So lots has happened, and of course everyone has an opinion on it and everyone is talking about it.

So when I went to Ms. Magazine's website today to see what I could respond to, a lot of it was discussing Kamala Harris and her race and everything. that she brings to the Democratic platform and discussing Donald Trump and their strategy and J.D. Vant as Donald Trump's chosen running mate and chosen VP if he were to win in November. So lots of politics to sift through and one that caught my eye that actually is kind of old news by now. It's a couple weeks old, but I think it deserves to be addressed. It was a commentary on the Republican platform that changed. their stance on abortion and on marriage and especially gay marriage.

And so I wanted to, first of all, explain what that is, why it's important, and then go through the Ms. Magazine article, which is really confusing. This website, just basically if they can turn anything into something that is outrageous that they can complain about and be extremely frustrated about. Because from common sense point of view, they should be happy that the Republican Party has, quote unquote, compromised or stepped back on the issue of abortion. And yet they spin it into this dangerous thing that the Republican Party is doing. And they must be trying to get an abortion ban nationally in a different approach,

which is just not true based off of the reporting and evidence. So we're going to jump into it. I'm going to give my opinion and gloss on the whole thing. And yeah, we'll get started. So before the RNC, before the National Convention, so a few weeks ago, the Republican Party, the GOP, met to go through their Republican Party platform. And they haven't met since 2016. I think they do this every four years with a presidential candidate running, but they didn't do that in 2020. And so basically the headline that broke was that they've changed their language on abortion. And that had been its language for decades. since abortion has really been an issue. So originally it said that it advocated for an amendment to the Constitution that protected unborn children. It protected the right to life.

And so it says this will amend the Constitution. We will add this into the Constitution and it will forever change the Constitution. Similar to the 13th and 14th Amendments under the Civil War that banned slavery and then gave right to. to African Americans and to those now freed slaves, right? Same idea. It changes the Constitution for good. Well, now the Republican Party has changed that verbiage, that language, and says instead that that actually under the 14th Amendment, the right to life or the protection of life exists.

And so NBC News reported, I'm just going to read from it, it says, the proposed changes this year say that the 14th Amendment inherently offers protections for life at conception and that, quote, states are therefore free to pass laws protecting those rights. So what the platform does is it says since Dobbs, since we overturned Roe, two years ago,

the abortion decision is up to the states and we're not going to comment on it. It's basically being passive, being quiet, and saying the states get to decide state by state, it can differ. The only real hint it even gives at a statement, of life is oh the 14th Amendment gives the right to life. So that applies to unborn children.

But it doesn't say this means that abortion is wrong. This means that abortion should be legal or that our intent is to nationally ban abortion throughout the entire country. Instead it says, no, we're just going to make this a state-by-state issue. And the problem with that is that many states, even what you would say, quote-un-unquote, hard Republican states or right-leaning states have gone soft on abortion and have actually, I think of my own state, Ohio, and there are others that are listed and we'll talk about them, but that have actually legalized abortion in a more extreme sense than it was before Dobbs. It allows for the abortion of a child even later into term. and all of those qualifications that were at once in place because the abortion decision has been

returned to the states, it's causing states to return to their stance on it and update them or make them, frankly, harsher on life and more open to abortion. So it's a loss for Christians. That's the main point is that this is not a good thing. We should not be celebrating this, right? And more than that, and I'll just briefly mention this, we won't really talk about the marriage part. But it says that NBC News reported that the new proposed platform removes language that says marriage is, quote, between one man and one woman, and is the foundation for society. And instead, they replaced it with this, quote, culture that values the sanctity of marriage, the blessing of childhood, the foundational role of the family, and supports working parents.

The new proposed platform does not include mention of one man and one woman. So again, they're going soft on the marriage issue. And so there, I mean, there's no way to call it, except apparently Ms. Magazine disagrees. But we'll get into that. But the way to call this is that the Republican Party platform is going soft on these two great cultural issues, great meaning massive, not good, great cultural issues that they're going soft on in hopes of getting more votes.

The really sad and scary thing is that they might lose votes. They might lose the Christian conservative vote if people are truly that upset about this. And we'll go into more of that. But they are, quote unquote, compromising on marriage and compromising on abortion in order to appear less radical to a lot of voters who may be more independent or kind of in the middle between left and right and don't know which way they stand. they're hopeful that those voters who are likely more liberal on abortion and marriage will, but maybe more conservative when it comes to economic policy or immigration or foreign policy,

any of that, maybe being soft on these cultural issues will cause them to vote for the Republican platform. That's the idea, okay? So my main point that I just want to emphasize and I'll emphasize it throughout is that, first of all, this should not surprise Christians. As sad as it is, it shouldn't be shocking because our hope isn't in this world. Our hope has never been in political institutions. And if it is,

they're going to fail us because our hope is actually in Christ. It's in a kingdom that's not of this world, as Christ says. And we cannot expect political institutions to be our salvation because they simply aren't. So first of all, we shouldn't be extremely shocked because if we are extremely shocked, it shows that we're placing hope in the wrong object. Instead, our hope should be in Christ. But that doesn't mean that we should just check out. That doesn't mean that we should just be like, oh, well, it's not that big of a deal. It's just politics. That's not true either. Because Christians have an obligation to live in the time that they are placed. And, and to be a voice in the time that they are in,

we're commanded to live in this world but not be of it. So we won't be of worldly ideas, worldly promotions, worldly objects, but we do live in the world and we can still speak truth. And so we shouldn't just check out. In fact, we should be more vocal and more loud. I think of live action and other pro-life organizations that are not being quiet on this, that are outwardly speaking and outwardly correcting our government leaders who are saying,

you're being a coward on this and you're stepping back and you know what's right. And yet you're stepping back in order for a political victory. And it's not a political victory when hundreds of millions of children are being killed every year. Okay. So those are my main points is that Christians, our hope is not in politics. and yet we should still be vocal and stand for what is right. Finally, I will say this last point is that even though this is disappointing, there is still a clear, better option. So now we have two political platforms, one that grants abortion decisions to the states and one that pushes for a national abortion legalization.

Basically, abortion on demand, some people call it, that it's protected in the Constitution. and can't be changed. And so that is obviously worse and obviously more evil than the previous, just a state-by-state decision, even though neither is ideal. There is still one that is clearly worse than the other. And so Christians need to be aware of that. And checking out is not helpful in the long run. This is Strength and Dignity with Michaela Estreth.

You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. So we are discussing the Republican, Party's recent change in language regarding abortion. And now we're going to jump into a Ms. Magazine article that essentially accuses the Republican Party platform of changing their language in order to have a national ban on abortion instead of the very opposite of what they did do, which is compromise on abortion. So this article is by Carrie and Baker. And let's just jump into it.

Again, like we said previously, the GOP, she summarizes it. they changed the language that says we need an amendment for life in the Constitution, and instead they just say that the 14th Amendment's protections apply to children before birth. Okay, so this is one of her biggest fears. She says, the language of the platform maintains the party's longstanding position that the Constitution's 14th Amendment extends rights to fetuses, an interpretation that Republicans are already asking the Republican stacked Supreme Court to adopt. they don't need a new constitutional amendment or active Congress when they have a stacked Supreme

Court ready to interpret the current Constitution to ban abortion nationwide. So she's basically saying this is a new strategy. They're not going to do an amendment to the Constitution or an act of Congress. Instead, they're going to leave it up to the courts like they did with Dobbs, the Dobbs case, and so now they're saying, well, this is protected under the 14th Amendment. And so when an abortion case comes to the Supreme Court, then the Supreme Court, which is Republican stacked, will make an interpretation and protect life nationwide and ban abortion nationwide. So her fear is legitimate.

Like that could legally happen in a very hypothetical situation. But take, for example, just even this past summer, the Supreme Court voted 9-0 on an abortion case, a unanimous vote, which is like, basically unheard of. They voted 90 on this abortion case that, and the reason was that the arguments being made didn't apply to the circumstances. So it was saying that this abortion pill is dangerous to women and causes all of these side effects or symptoms or can be extremely dangerous. And yet the situation that they brought before the court, like the circumstances and the person that this. that this legal foundation was representing, that didn't happen. And so the Supreme Court can't rule on a hypothetical situation typically, right? And so that's why it was a unanimous decision of this is not

ours to legislate or to make a judgment on, right? So her fear is, it's unlikely. And if you talk to any pro-life organization or people who do this as their job, they're basically very discouraged about this, about the state of abortion and the state of life in our current time. They're not like, yeah, it's going to happen. Like, I remember hearing people talk about it right before Dobbs and they were really, really excited and really hopeful. And now after two years of states becoming even harsher against life and more pro-abortion, they are discouraged. So that's just something to keep in mind about her fear that she's saying is apparently as a strategy of the Republican Party. Okay, and then her other main point, she says, contrary to the mainstream reporting, the RNC's platform change is not an abandonment

of their goal to ban abortion nationwide, but a change in tactics about how to achieve one. With polls showing the vast majority of Americans supporting abortion rights, the RNC realizes that abortion is a losing issue for them at the ballot box. They have lost seven out of seven abortion ballot measures since Dobbs, including the conservative states of Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio, as well as electoral defeats. Abortion drove the midterm congressional elections. So she's saying it's a change in strategy, like I just addressed with their, oh, they're going to bring a case before the Supreme Court. That's the change in strategy. But then she brings up everything that I was discussing earlier. of, oh, abortion now at a state issue, the Republican Party has realized that they're losing

voters on this. And so for her to say that it's a strategy to gain a nationwide ban on abortion is counterintuitive because it's actually a strategy to gain voters. And so they're stepping away from a nationwide ban on abortion because they're realizing that even in conservative states like she listed Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio, all of those were permissive of abortion, even celebratory of abortion, or are giving it greater impact in the state than outlawing it. So she's right in that sense,

but she's wrong in the sense of the RNC is just trying to be sneaky and make a new strategy. Instead, they're actually compromising. That's the point. They are compromising. Okay, so then she brings this random point. She cites Georgetown Law Professor Michelle Bratrick Goodwin, and this professor says that the Supreme Court ignored the 14th Amendment's definition of citizens as, quote, persons born in the United States, which appears in the first sentence of the amendment. Okay, so she kind of inserts that in there, basically saying in the Dobbs decision, the 14th Amendment doesn't even apply.

Like they're taking it out of context because Dobbs directly applies to citizens. which are people born in the United States. So she's trying to use the whole literary context to say like this decision was invalid. But if we're going to use context, let's go to historical context. So historically, the 14th Amendment was passed right after the Civil War. So like late 1860s, 1870s, I believe. And it is directly applying to slaves who have now been freed. Okay. And there were different slaves. Some were born in a family in the United States into a slave family, but they were born in the U.S.

And others had been transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States for the slave trade. So that's the distinction between what a citizen is. And a citizen in the United States has always been someone. That's even in the original constitution. It says that a citizen is. is someone who was born in the United States. So the 14th Amendment is just carrying that language over, but it's also specifically distinguishing between slaves born here and others who have just been brought over. Those are not citizens of the United States. So that's the historical context. The second historical context is the fact that at the time, no one was, A, thinking about abortion, B, it wasn't even fathomable. So it's not like the authors of the 14th,

Amendment were sitting there being like, oh yes, these slaves who were born in the United States are citizens, but before they were born, they're not citizens. Or it's like any woman who's pregnant, like their kid isn't quite a citizen until they're born in the United States. That's not, that's not the point of the amendment, right? And finally, and I think the most important point, is that citizen doesn't provide a personhood or human identity or human rights. Being a citizen or not being a citizen doesn't mean that you're not a person. My pastor from my home church is he wasn't born in the United States. He was born overseas and there's always a joke. Every time there's big political issues is he's like, well, I can't vote anyways because he's not a citizen, right? But that doesn't

make him less of a person. And the constitution and the Declaration of Independence are both very clear on what a person is. And it says all the Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among these are life, liberty, and their pursuit of happiness. So those rights aren't only given to citizens. They're given to all people, all people created by God in his image. And so that's the more important point, is that, yes, these rights do apply to these unborn children. Okay, so her final conclusion of the Ms. Magazine article, she says, the Republican National Committee's platform position on abortion is not a retreat from a nationwide ban.

It is a call for constitutional personhood for fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses, which the MAGA-stacked Supreme Court could adopt to create a nationwide ban not only on abortion, but IVF and contraception, including IUDs and emergency contraception. Okay, so here we go again with the panic language and everything is ending and basically they're just going to outlaw all things and not just abortion. but, you know, send women back to the 1500s or whatever you want to say. But her point is that she's just concluding on a panicked note. And A, that's not helpful.

B, it's kind of a lot of nonsense. It really irks me that she uses three words for unborn child, but none of them are unborn child or even baby. It's fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses, all of which aren't the exact same thing. All of which are, okay, fine, medically accurate terms. but also she's intentionally using those words to denote the value of that unborn child, saying it's not a child, it's not a person, it's not, it won't be a citizen, and it doesn't have rights.

And that's just frankly untrue. And it's really sad and also irritating. Okay, so just to conclude, I want to again, reassert what I said about Christian's response to this Republican Party platform change. and that is that our hope is not in this world. Our hope is in our Savior Jesus Christ who promises to make all things new. And we should not place our hope in political parties or platforms. And we should not be surprised when they fail us.

But we should also be involved, be engaged, be discussing, make our views known, make our frustration known at this policy change. And finally, it's more important to vote for. the lesser of two evils or to avoid the worst option than to just check out and say, well, it doesn't matter anyways because I'm a Christian and I don't believe our political institutions can save us. That is not what I'm advocating for. I'm advocating for the opposite. This says, I'm a Christian and here's what I know is true morally, objectively, based off of all men being made in the image of God. People need to hear that. It's a message. that needs to be heard and we need to say it.

Thanks for listening to Strength and Dignity. I'm Michaela Astridh, and you're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 at them.