The Republican Party’s platform committee has drafted a resolution reaffirming its official opposition to abortion and its support for a human life amendment to protect unborn children.
“Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed,” reads the party’s draft platform language. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the 14th Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.”
Delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., next week will vote on the resolution. Republican officials say it will almost certainly pass, according to CNN.
The language is similar to a resolution that passed at the 2004 and 2008 conventions.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, chairman of the 110-member platform committee, thanked committee members for “affirming our respect for human life.”
The platform also opposes federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research and government funding or subsidy for health care that includes abortion coverage.
Abortion has been legal in the U.S. since the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade struck down abortion laws in all 50 states.
Earlier this month, the Democratic Party’s platform committee rejected Democrats for Life of America’s request to acknowledge “deeply held and sometimes differing positions on issues of personal conscience, like abortion and the death penalty.”
Its 2008 party platform read “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”
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Well the lines of faith and morals can’t be any clearer than that for Catholic voters in the United States. Any “Catholic” who votes for Obama shame on you. Sin is on your hands. Being in the Catholic church is about the salvation of souls. Jesus made it clear what you need to do to be saved. He talked about Hell more than anybody. There is no place for personal opinions whatsoever when it comes to issues of life and morals. Remember the Church is not a democracy. And thank the Lord for that! We humans are too sinful to be able to allow Holy Mother Church to fall into a democratic system for it not to be messed up. Here is where the Church is protected by the Holy Ghost. The USA is more vulnerable of course and the Democratic party makes it clear in their platform that they are going down a very bad path.
The GOP is like the son in the parable who says he will do his father’s will (i.e., “I’m against abortion”) but then does the opposite. The GOP encourages abortions by its opposition to health care for poor women, opposition to minimum wage increases, cuts in social services so that the super wealthy will pay less taxes, and other similar measures. Remember—the Bishops criticized Paul Ryan’s budget as not being in conformity with Catholic social teaching, particulary the preferential option for the poor. When the GOP is in control, abortion rates always increase. The Democratic party is like the son in that same parable who says he won’t do the father’s will (i.e., “we support Roe”) but then does the father’s will—unwittingly, to be sure—by supporting health care for poor women, social safety net, and other social services. Both parties have blood on their hands, so don’t kid yourself that voting Republican is somehow the right thing to do.
Platform, smatform. Romney has already made it clear that he believes the right of the child to live MAY be infringed if the child was conceived by rape. And did you hear the protests from Paul Ryan? Yeah, me neither. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/paul-ryan-softens-anti-abortion-stance-as-good-step-in-the-right-direction/
Hey! Let’s reward the GOP for caring about abortion only at fundraisers and on election day, not for what they do in office! Maybe that will start working! After all, miracles do happen, and past performance is not guarantee of future returns!
Or ... maybe we could make it clear that if they don’t shape up, the only way they’ll see the White House will be as a tourist.
The Platform is great, but we all know that talk is cheap. The Akin’s incident is very revealing. It seems that Paul Ryan who has been a steadfast Catholic who opposes abortion is waffling under pressure from the feminists, the media and the GOP elites. As with Gov. Romney, people like Akin can easily make a blunder. By urging Akin to quit the race, Cong. Ryan now looks like a political hack who is willing to throw his allies under the bus when it suits his current ambitions. For the two candidates this could have been an ideal moment to affirm that all life is sacred.
Words and deeds is right.
Talk about “blowing smoke”....
“We support a Constitutional Amendment that no one who has more than 2 brain cells knows will never be passed & ratified anyway.
So vote for us!!”
No matter how you want to slice it the Democrat party stands for the culture of death and the Republican party for the culture of Life!
Paul Ryan is a good & decent man & a faithful Catholic.
The type of bickering seen in comments here is much like that heard at state GOP conventions & is behind the reason we can’t get pro-life candidates elected.The GOP becomes fractured & breaks off into warring,uber-conservative, splinter groups while the Democrats remain unified.
Use that energy to lobby for more pro-life legislation AFTER we elect a new GOP president.Thanks.
Wow, it looks like the drones are really out on this one.
For the critics of Ryan, here’s what the Church’s position is which is based on the sake of getting the most good: “Doerflinger (chief lobbyist on life issues for the USSCB) echoed this point in his comments for the Register.”
“The Church opposes all direct abortion and federal funding for all such abortion. But without supporting the exceptions, the bishops’ conference has supported the restrictions placed on abortion funding by the Hyde Amendment and similar laws for the sake of the good they do and the many lives they save.”
Yeah, the solid pro-life support in the Republican platform all these years has really been a vote getter for them. If that was true, then how could Catholics be the largest single voting block for the vehemently pro-abortion Democrat Party?
Chris are you Christian? Then where is your faith? A Constitutional amendment will be passed. God’s will is always done against all odds and all opposition!
President Obama has said a couple of times that if his daughters want to abort his grandchildren that it is very important to him that they will be able to do that legally. The killing of babies in the womb trumps everything for me. I must pick the lesser of 2 evils, that means I vote for Romney, at least he wants to kill fewer babies in the womb then Obama. How sad our world is.
Both parties are deeply invested in the culture of the death. The fact that the GOP includes anti-abortion rhetoric in its platform hardly makes it “pro-life.”
We have a choice and a DUTY in November to vote for the only party that gives us religious freedom - the Republican party - vs. The party that wants to make us slaves of the state - the Democrat party!
Andy, that’s bull dung. What in God’s name is an intrinsic evil the Republican platform contains? Belonging to the Democrat Party that denies the right to life to unborn humans itself, is a sin if you are Catholic and believe God is the giver of life and pray for God’s will to be done. Open your eyes and your mind and take a good look to see if you really believe what you profess to believe and pray for before Jesus in the Eucharist on Sundays. Stop being an associate in Satan’s work to conquer God.
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