The Republican Party platform committee’s strict abortion plank might have flown under the radar if not for Rep. Todd Akin’s explosive comments, which thrust a harsh light on the party’s anti-abortion views this week.
The 2012 party platform crafted in Tampa this week includes an abortion ban that makes no exceptions for cases of rape, incest or to save a mother’s life.
“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,” the draft platform reads. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”
But the party insists that its strict opposition to abortion doesn’t necessarily mean it objects to rape and incest exceptions. Instead, the RNC argues, it enshrined a broad set of principles that don’t delve into any policy details.
Sean Spicer, communications director for the Republican National Committee, defended the platform on CNN Thursday morning as “a simple set of principles” that takes no position on exceptions.
The platform is “a simple set of principles which is: The Republican Party’s pro-life,” Spicer said. “There is no additional language, so to talk about exceptions or whatever is not found in the platform. We also have a principle that says we are for a balanced budget amendment. We don’t get into details about whether we support cuts here or there.”
CNN’s Soledad O’Brien took issue with the idea that the platform is just a vague statement of principles, and read the abortion plank aloud.
Spicer denied that the party has come down one way or the other on exceptions. He emphasized the Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s differing views on abortion to demonstrate his point: “Paul Ryan does not necessarily believe in all of those exceptions, but as the No. 2 he [is] signing onto the No. 1’s ticket. And again, within the party, even within that platform that was adopted, there was a wide variety of whether or not, what that principle meant in terms of that exception.”
The abortion plank uses the same language the party approved in 2004 and 2008, and as Politico noted Tuesday, “not one of the 100-plus members on the GOP platform committee introduced amendments.”
“To try to read into it and say this means this, and as you just, did attach a specific piece of legislation, it is not with the platform says,” Spicer said.
Though RNC officials pushed back on the extreme characterization of their platform earlier in the week, the idea they they are not taking a stand one way or the other on rape and incest exceptions is relatively new. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said Tuesday, “This is the platform of the Republican Party. It’s not the platform of Mitt Romney” — suggesting that the party differed from Romney, who does support such exemptions.
Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who ran the RNC from 2009 to 2011 under a platform with the exact same abortion language, indicated this week that the platform did oppose exceptions. “I think that view that [Romney] personally holds has been made public for some time,” Steele told Politico. “Even if [the lack of a rape exemption] does become an official platform, that’s not going to change his view on the subject. Not everybody in the party agrees with everything that’s in the platform.”
But the RNC now maintains that the party hasn’t taken a stand on exceptions. “The media has been making assumptions about our platform so [Spicer] is making it clear that our platform is SILENT on exceptions,” an RNC official told TPM in an email Thursday, affirming Spicer’s comments. “It’s not that we come down on exceptions one way or another, we leave that to states. The platform includes broad pro-life principles and leaves specifics up to the states.”
“So it’s not that we are being pro-exception or anti-exception — we are SILENT on exceptions and leave that up to the states,” the official said.
The platform will become official when it is approved on the first night of the convention in Tampa Monday.
