(TWS) It’s hard reality that one of the primary actions planned by the Democratic Party and an incoming Harris-Walz administration will be to enact a bill to protect legal abortion up to birth (and malign neglect of those few babies who survive late-term procedures). But what about the Republicans? After decades of declaring support for federal protections for the unborn, their standard bearer says he opposes a federal role, and his running mate now says that a second-term President Trump will veto any “national abortion ban.”
Is that a blanket statement regarding anything Congress might send his way? It appears to include opposition to any changes in the Food and Drug Administration’s Wild West distribution of abortion pills to women and girls without a prior medical exam. For weeks, GOP voices added to the vagueness by stating that they did not expect to have the votes in Congress to pass anything on the life issue “for the foreseeable future.” But a veto promise is only made if Congress would, in fact, act on life.
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Cast aside the blinding and blurring politics at work here and ask the questions, “Is there a federal role in the abortion issue and does it make sense for either side in the debate to abandon it?” The answer is clearly yes to the first question and no to the second. As to the first, the Democrats, eternally loyal to even the most infernal projects of their base, have answered it resoundingly. It’s the Women’s Health Protection Act all the way. If the party weren’t so awful on social issues, one would want to be among them. They never sow doubt. Your pledge and your contribution go where you sent it.
But Republicans should have a similarly clear answer. First is the fact that some existing pro-life policies are at risk, and there is unfinished business. Take the abortion funding question. The various abortion funding limits, the result of years of bipartisan leadership by people like Henry Hyde (R), Robert Dornan (R), Harold Volkmer (D), and James Oberstar (D), have saved north of 2.6 million lives. But the primary amendment, Hyde’s limitation on the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill, must be re-enacted every year. In 2016, in a commitment letter to the pro-life movement, candidate Donald Trump pledged to seek passage of a permanent Hyde statute. It has not been accomplished.
Can it pass the next Congress? No one knows, but the pledge to do so should be renewed now. The measure has majority popular support and is good public policy, in effect a taxpayer conscience clause that establishes the fact that abortion is a matter of right and wrong and not true medicine. Is there merit in voting on a measure and losing the vote, narrowly perhaps? Political and policy change comes when each side in a debate strives to refine its arguments, assemble the evidence, and advance its position. The public has a right to know where elected officeholders stand on taxpayer-funded abortion. Congress should vote promptly on a permanent Hyde in 2025, and the Trump-Vance ticket should sign on now to achieve this objective.
Meanwhile, there are other measures Congress should debate and that any Republican Party worth its salt (and your vote) should repledge itself to seek. Look no further than the Republican platforms from 1976 to 2020 for nearly two dozen examples. But there are more proposals of a federal cast that deserve consideration and adoption. Most have been introduced in one form or another and most have solid polling support, though that is not the sole criterion by which a public official, of all people, should do the right thing. Read a biography of Frederick Douglass or Justice John Marshall Harlan or “Profiles in Courage” to sample why.
Here are a few measures that should attract the attention of the next Congress besides a permanent Hyde amendment:
CIANA. The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act is a measure, akin to the Mann Act, that would punish transport of a minor across state lines when the intent is to procure an abortion and evade an in-state parental notification or consent law. The bill would likewise punish an abortionist who carries out an abortion on a minor from another state while knowingly evading such a law. Congress should now recognize the reality that it is abortion drugs that are likely to be shipped across state lines, not the minor child, and doctors may not be doing the shipment.
H.R. 792 should be modified into a CIANA Max, imposing penalties on anyone who ships abortion pills to a minor in another state with a parental notice or consent law. The law could likewise reinforce a parental right of recovery against anyone who ships abortion drugs across state lines to a minor or a third non-parental party for the purpose of inducing an abortion.
The 1,000 Days Act. Child development specialists have long recognized the first 1,000 days of life as crucial to a child’s lifelong development. Authorities on all sides of the abortion question readily identify the full prenatal period and the first two years of postnatal life as part of that period. Wanted babies are always accorded this recognition. To make this recognition equitable any proposal for an infant tax credit, like Vice President Kamala Harris’s, should have its timing reset to the beginning of pregnancy, so that it aids mothers and fathers in obtaining prenatal care, adjusting work schedules, and otherwise preparing for the child’s arrival. Credits like this have already been introduced in both houses of Congress.
Conscience protections. One of the long-held goals of abortion advocates has been to enmesh health care personnel and other professionals in statutes and policies that require them to participate in carrying out or referring for abortions. A variety of federal and state laws have been passed to create a hedge around the conscience of individuals and institutions who want no part of practices that contravene the “do no harm” canons of medicine. But such laws are only sporadically enforced by government and, by liberal administrations, not at all.
The Conscience Protection Act (CPA), reintroduced in 2024 by Senator James Lankford (R) of Oklahoma, would remedy this problem by offering full statutory protection to the conscience rights of health care providers, insurance companies, and others and by providing for a private right of action to vindicate those rights. Democrats have long betrayed their intentions — and lack of support among large swaths of the medical community — by opposing conscience rights. The CPA could be further strengthened by adding to its terms the right of medical personnel and entities to refuse to cooperate with assisted suicide, euthanasia, gender reassignment operations, and the like.
PRENDA.The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act has slipped off the radar screen in recent years, but the proposed legislation would carry on the traditional action of Congress to protect human beings from discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability. In this instance, the contemplated discrimination is lethal and PRENDA would block the destruction of an unborn child when it is being sought solely because of the child’s race, sex, or the actual or suspected presence of an anomaly. Other nations have dealt with the challenge of such phenomena as sex-selection abortion, but laws in the United States have not kept pace.
The MOMS Act. Just before Mother’s Day this year, Senators Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) introduced the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMs) Act. As Rubio said of the measure, “Being pro-life means being pro-mother. We need to work towards passing legislation that helps mothers before, during, and after pregnancy.” In truth, bills of this nature, which strive to coordinate communication about and access to federal programs designed to assist mothers in the prenatal and postpartum period, should have strong bipartisan support.
Each of the foregoing ideas has enjoyed support on Capitol Hill and each is sorely needed. None constitutes an abortion “ban,” as that term is commonly bruited about. Congress should continue to introduce and consider how it can protect unborn boys and girls throughout the term of pregnancy. But in the meantime, any candidate for federal office should be able to openly embrace these measures which offer some refuge to the unborn from pain and discrimination or that protect collateral interests like conscience and the well-being of mothers.
Tweet This: Congress should continue to introduce and consider how it can protect unborn boys and girls throughout the term of pregnancy.
In 1994, Republicans rose electorally on their embrace of a Contract with America. Today, the party risks a Contraction with America, under which it no longer stands for a range of policy ideas the American people broadly support. There is time to correct that perception and advance an agenda America cannot afford to abandon. With barely 60 days to Election Day, that time is growing short.
Editor's note: This article was published by The Washington Stand and is reprinted with permission. Chuck Donovan is a veteran family policy analyst and former Executive Vice President of Family Research Council. He serves on the Board of Directors for Heartbeat International, which manages Pregnancy Help News.
