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MILWAUKEE — Overturning Roe is one of the crowning achievements of Donald Trump’s presidency. No one at the Republican National Convention is talking about it.
Heading into the final day of the Republican Party’s first national gathering since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision, which has allowed more than a third of states to ban nearly all abortions, the issue has barely received a passing mention. Main-stage speakers have instead leaned into economic populism, isolationism and — frustratingly, for evangelicals and other social conservatives — social libertarianism.
But most GOP delegates here, whose values are indicative of the party’s shifting mores, are fine with abortion not taking center stage, saying they have little interest in divisive social issues that could damage the nominee at a moment when Trump appears on a glidepath to victory. While Democrats and abortion-rights groups stage press conferences outside the convention and attempt to use GOP vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance’s past statements to bring abortion back into the political spotlight, the GOP is choosing not to engage.
“The core of the party is pro-life. There are some people that are further with it that believe in zero abortions, and that’s their right,” said William Wallis, a delegate from Louisiana and a radio show host. “But a lot of people in the party are realizing that we should not be trying to judge somebody’s life, dictate how somebody lives their life, and they’re focusing more on the policies that are good for all Americans.”
The absence of abortion, long an animating force within the GOP, is the latest example of how the Republican Party is departing from decades of party orthodoxy amid a historic realignment that’s increasingly wooing a younger, more diverse and working-class constituency.
It also demonstrates the dominance of Trump’s presidential campaign, which has brought a litany of former opponents like Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis to hush and heel on the convention stage this week.
His campaign took a similar approach with anti-abortion groups, which raised concerns about a new party platform developed by the Trump campaign watering down the party’s historically strong stance on abortion. By strategically developing a new GOP party platform behind closed doors, stacking an approval committee with loyalists and quickly pushing through changes, the campaign was able to stave off most dissent.
Some social conservatives, including anti-abortion advocates and evangelical leaders, grumbled, but their protests barely registered here in Milwaukee. They admit they don’t have the clout they held in 2016, when they were able to trade the vote of religious conservatives for the promise of the appointment of conservative Supreme Court justices.
While broadly understood as politically expedient, the lack of an emphasis on abortion at the convention is still angering the GOP’s socially conservative wing and raising fears that they are losing their grasp on the party and a chance to advance more anti-abortion policies in the next four years.
“You had some really strong pro-life leaders up there with really wonderful records who could’ve said something and didn’t,” said Kristi Hamrick, chief policy strategist for Students for Life. “And that’s disappointing.”
Vance, who last year described himself “as pro life as anyone,” didn’t mention, or allude to, abortion in his Wednesday night address. Other speakers earlier in the day, and on previous nights, made only passing references to the issue — the “unborn” being “made in the image of God;” prosecution of “pro-life activists;” and a broad reference from former Trump senior counselor Kellyanne Conway to “protecting life.”
Some social conservatives were hopeful that Vance, who has in the past equated abortion to murder and once suggested he didn’t support exceptions for rape and incest, would nudge Trump to the right on the issue. Instead, Vance has alarmed anti-abortion advocates by voicing support for mifepristone, the widely used abortion pill. They fear that Vance’s brand of “New Right’’ conservatism, which they hoped would give them a seat again at the GOP table, is falling prey to electoral calculations.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Away from the convention floor, some anti-abortion advocates tried to make their voices heard. Standing on concrete barricades outside the security perimeter Monday evening, several activists with megaphones urged delegates to “stand up and advocate” for the movement or else they’d have “a lot of blood” on their hands.
“We would have loved for [the GOP] to stay a pro-life party,” said Anastasia Rogers, an activist working with the anti-abortion group Live Action. “Ultimately, it boils down to ‘your state, your decision,’ and that sounds a lot like ‘your body, your choice’ to me.”
Still, many anti-abortion groups support the GOP platform, largely because it refers to the 14th Amendment, which conservatives argue protects life beginning at conception, as well as their broader view that the document does not preclude federal action on abortion despite its emphasis on the states. And many hope to influence Trump’s cabinet appointments and push him to use his executive authority to restrict abortion access and undo abortion-rights regulations established under President Joe Biden such as restricting access to mifepristone.
But there’s uncertainty within swaths of the movement about how much sway they will have in a second Trump administration given the short shrift they’ve received over the past several months.
“I totally understand why so many groups would, even on the watered down platform, say, ‘This is a pro-life platform, the choice is clear.’ That doesn’t give the pro-life coalition a strong hand to deal with the White House,” said John Shelton, policy director at Advancing American Freedom, the advocacy group established by former Vice President Mike Pence. “This isn’t any longer the party of a Religious Right that could credibly threaten to walk.”
But most delegates at this week’s convention described themselves as “pro-life” and are fine with Trump’s plan to leave it to the states, even if that means that abortion is widely accessible in blue states like Minnesota.
“What they asked of the president, and what they asked of this last administration, was to overturn Roe. They did the thing. They returned it to the states. Mission accomplished,” said Kip Christianson, a delegate from Minnesota. “I’m personally very pro-life. Minnesota has spoken. It’s not Minnesota’s focus.”
Arkansas state Sen. Mark Johnson, who voted in support of the state’s trigger law that banned abortion unless necessary to save the life of the mother and described himself as “100 percent pro-life,” said he feels the same.
“While I wish other states would be more pro-life, if another state wants to liberalize abortion, I think that’s what the Constitution allows,” Johnson said. “It’s okay for states to be a little different.”
