Several pro-life leaders seemed upset that President Trump recently urged some “flexibility” with the Hyde Amendment. The amendment prohibits federal tax dollars budgeted for Medicaid from being used for abortions. The justification was to get some budgetary movement in support of extending ObamaCare insurance premium subsidies. What shocked me most, though, was the pro-life response of National Review.
The Review’s article begins: “Not content with retreating on healthcare, some Republicans — unfortunately led by President Trump — want to retreat further on abortion at the same time.”
That some Republicans are not fiscally or socially “conservative” is not surprising. That’s been true for decades. What surprises me is National Review’s comment about Trump and one of the justifications it gives for Republicans not comprising on abortion. Here is the proffered justification:
We understand that the politics of abortion frighten a lot of Republican politicians. But their fear has outstripped reality. Republicans have gained ground in each of the two national elections since Roe v. Wade was overturned, taking the House in 2022 and the Senate and presidency in 2024. No pro-life senator or governor lost his office in either election.
Why is any of this surprising? Surely the writers at National Review and pro-life leaders in general recall that in 2024 the President, with the aid of the Republican Party Platform Chair, Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), led the charge to cram through, with no debate, a new Republican Party Platform on abortion. Chapter 9, Part 4 said abortion was strictly a state issue, but the national party would “oppose Late Term Abortion.”
Does anyone think this de-emphasis if not outright Party retreat on abortion at a national level suddenly popped up with what Trump said about the Hyde Amendment? If so, consider the following.
In June, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade by its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Whole Health Organization. As a result, many in the pro-life community started a push for a national prohibition on abortion as an equal protection matter -- protecting the life of all persons, born or unborn, equally.
So, while Republicans did “take” the U.S. House in 2022, what National Review didn’t say is the mid-term Republican electoral gains were not those that were expected. Trump explained why with his January 1, 2023 Truth Social post:
At least Trump thought abortion cost Republicans in 2022, even if National Review thought all was good and being pro-life was no a liability.
Three months after this post, on Monday, April 8, 2023, Trump publicly “declined to take a position on a potential federal abortion ban Monday. He said the fate of the procedure should be left to individual states.”
The previous day, the chair of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin, a presidential battleground state, had said: “In 2024, voters will be deciding whether to elect people who want a national abortion ban.”
Not surprisingly, only fifteen days after Trump’s statement, CNN reported:
House Republicans are abandoning a years-long push by their party to pass a federal abortion ban and are exploring other ways to advance their anti-abortion agenda – a remarkable shift that underscores how the GOP is wrestling with an issue that has become a political landmine for their party.
I see a Republican Party steadily trending toward retreat on abortion following that the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs. And that retreat culminated in the 2024 Republican Party Platform.
I believe that retreat helped “save” the U.S. Senate elections in 2024, and perhaps the candidacy of Trump in 2026.
Contrary to National Review’s opinion, I think it is hard for Republicans to lose congressional elections on an issue that the national Party has officially assured people is not a federal issue.
And its observation about the election of Republican governors in 2024 is puffery in my opinion too. I cannot find a report that any pro-life Republican gubernatorial candidate beat a pro-choice gubernatorial incumbent in 2023 or 2022. In fact, to the contrary, the pro-life Republican candidate in Kentucky, a the state’s former attorney general, lost to the pro-choice Democrat incumbent, Andy Beshear, in 2023.
Moreover, the pro-life position lost 10 out of 11 times on state ballot issues in 2022, the only win being a prohibition in Kansas to “ban abortion in the second and third trimesters, except in medical emergencies or when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.”
In my view, no serious pro-life person should be surprised by what the President said about the Hyde Amendment.
