The debut of the Republican National Committee’s recently revamped platform was celebrated by top Republicans and even some pro-life groups as a unifying message that will carry former President Donald Trump to victory come November. Buried in the abortion section of the 16-page document, however, is permission for the murder of millions of unborn babies via abortion and in vitro fertilization.

It’s no secret that the Trump campaign worked with the RNC to “gut” the party’s old promises to hold the abortion industry accountable and protect life at whatever cost. Sure enough, when the GOP publicized its 2024 pledge on Monday, its promise to “proudly stand for families and life” stopped short of delivering on tried and true protections for unborn babies.

The weak commitment could be amended after review by the platform committee in Milwaukee next week, but it’s unlikely that much will change.

To appease demands that abortion for Republicans be a hands-off, “state issue,” the RNC framed the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision as reaffirming a “power has been given to the states and to a vote of the people.” The resolution ironically invokes the 14th Amendment, which prohibits the government from depriving Americans of life, liberty, or property without due process, as reasoning for giving states free reign over whether babies live or die.

The GOP’s deliberate failure to carry over the party’s 2016 pledge to “support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth” would permit states governed by extremism to continue executing 99 percent of unborn babies currently murdered by abortion.

Even though the RNC resolution technically claims opposition to “late-term abortion,” it says nothing about endorsing a federal law that would at least bring the U.S. up to speed with most European countries and at most uphold the moral and constitutional duty to protect life.

The resolution also leaves dozens more states susceptible to deceptive abortion ballot measures that, if passed, guarantee abortion through birth for any reason in even the reddest of states.

In addition to giving states a free pass on abortion, the RNC expressed unwavering support for a practice that routinely abandons and discards millions of little lives. 

Hundreds of thousands of IVF cycles yield big batches of embryos every year. Yet, only an estimated 7 percent of these test tube babies survive the treacherous journey from petri dish to freezer to womb. The remaining embryos are discarded or abandoned in freezers after undergoing eugenics-esque genetic grading.

Supporting policies that could easily be construed as offering a broad range of reproductive tech available to anyone and everyone, including accused pedophiles, who want to create potentially motherless and fatherless children by whatever means necessary, is simply not pro-life.

Instead of following through on the life begins at conception policy the party claimed back in 2016 by advocating for the addition of a human life amendment to the Constitution, the GOP has effectively rubber-stamped states adding abortion through all nine months of pregnancy and possibly even a “right” to reproductive technology to their constitutions.

The RNC’s new abortion and IVF platform hasn’t simply stiffed the pro-life voters who helped elect Trump and so many other Republicans to office. It has effectively ensured that Republicans, not unlike Democrats, will go against voters’ wishes on abortion.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.