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The Republican National Convention released its platform yesterday. It includes the following language addressing life: 

We proudly stand for families and Life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights. After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People. We will oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).

How It Hits 

14th Amendment: The value of human life and the need to recognize the dignity of every person has always been a core element of the Republican Party from the earliest days of the Party of Lincoln. The American people have fought, bled, and died to raise up humanity and to bring down those structures that devalue the reality of human life. It is proper and good to recognize every life, including those in the womb, share the distinct protections gained by those that have given so much and found as a guarantee within the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Every American should take up the cause to stop the destruction of human life in the womb. 

The people have a voice: The world no longer looks like it did in 1973 (or in 2016), when the United States Supreme Court ripped from the hands of the people the authority, but not the responsibility, to protect human life from its earliest stages. In 2022, that same Court disabused itself from the belief that it alone had authority to procure a type of human denigration based on an injective reading of the Constitution. The authority to protect human flourishing by protecting human life has been handed back to the American people. 

How It Misses 

IVF: A carte blanche approach to IVF fails to recognize the true nature of the current IVF regime in the U.S. A regular purpose of IVF as it is currently practiced in the United States is embryo banking, which requires introducing male sperm to female eggs in a Petri dish and freezing successfully fertilized embryos in liquid nitrogen. According to CDC data from 2021, the last year for which data is available, 41 percent of IVF cycles were banking cycles, where eggs or embryos are produced for potential future use. 
 
American IVF businesses exist to create and freeze embryonic human persons. The same CDC data show that the only service that 100% of fertility businesses offer is embryo cryopreservation and over 83% of IVF transfers make use of thawed embryos who were previously frozen. 
 
The IVF industry in America has been termed the “Wild West” due to a near-total lack of patient health and safety regulations and meaningful regulatory oversight. Consumer protections for parents of IVF children are generally lacking. Parents generally have few rights with respect to their care and treatment by IVF businesses, and embryonic children are typically treated as property rather than persons. This often leads to the destruction of children which have been prevented from maturing. The IVF industry should be held to best practice standards in biobanking to mitigate against the loss of embryonic life and every effort made to make IVF non-destructive. 

Administrative Action: The current administration has taken significant action to attempt to force abortion, or financial coverage of abortion, into American policy. This includes utilizing a law intended to protect women in active labor from being dumped on the street (EMTALA), using defense appropriations to pay for members of the military to travel across state lines to eliminate their children, and eliminating the Mexico City Policy to allow foreign development dollars to promote abortion globally. By landing on language that suggests the authority now lies with the people in the many states, it misses the opportunity to engage with those actions that are necessary at the administrative level to protect life and to stop the coopting of the American system to promote abortion. 

What is Lacking 

Defining Elective Abortion: A lack of a definition untethers a platform from the true need for action. It is necessary to understand what elective abortion is to truly understand why and what action must be taken. Elective abortion is the intentional termination of human life in the womb. When we understand that reality, we can develop policies that respond to the needs of women, girls, and the unborn. We can understand there is a distinction between targeting a human life for termination and providing medical services. It is within this clarity that we can pursue a good and just society. 

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