The following is a Catholic Action League of Massachusetts news update…
With President Donald Trump’s April 8th announcement on Truth Social that abortion legislation should be left to the states, some conservatives are attempting to re-write history.
Members of the conservative commentariat, like Kurt Schlichter of Town Hall and Martha MacCallum of Fox News, are now claiming that Republicans sought to repeal Roe v. Wade, so that the issue could be returned to the states, that state sovereignty on abortion has been the Republican Party position, and that the President’s recent announcement is consistent with that position.
That assertion however, is a manifest falsehood.
Donald J. Trump ran for President on a 2016 Republican Platform promising far reaching federal initiatives to oppose abortion.
The Republican Party platform in 2016 stated “We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”
It went on to say that “We urge all States and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts.”
The Platform then called upon Congress to ban abortions based upon sex selection and disability, to ban dismemberment abortions, and to enact a Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. It also commended the House of Representatives for passing Born Alive legislation.
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Any political figure in America today can be expected to alter or reverse his positions on issues of public controversy, even matters of supreme moral import. His supporters however, have no right to lie about it.”
“What happened Monday was an abandonment of five decades of Republican promises of federal opposition to abortion. The pro-life movement needs to recognize, lucidly, that we have suffered a major defeat, one of the worst in the movement’s history.”
“We need to determine what our response will be, and we need to ask President Trump, candidly — or as the Soviets used to say, in a frank and comradely manner — what if anything, he intends to do for the pro-life cause if he is elected to a second term.”
