FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 16, 2024
CONTACT: Lindsay Reilly, [email protected]
Larry Hogan’s Republican Party Hides Nationwide Abortion Ban in RNC Platform
Legal experts are calling out Larry Hogan’s Republican Party for hiding their goal to ban abortion nationwide “in plain sight” in the policy platform adopted yesterday at the Republican National Convention. Hogan, who was recruited by Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and vows to caucus with Republicans, would give Senate Republicans the 51st vote they need to enact their anti-abortion agenda.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Salon: National abortion ban “hidden in plain sight” in revised RNC agenda, legal experts say
By Nicole Karlis
July 13, 2024
- Earlier this week, the Republican Party released its 16-page “Make America Great Again” policy platform ahead of its national convention… It said that the party supports states establishing fetal personhood through the constitution’s 14th Amendment.
- “This is nothing more than a national abortion ban — not to mention a ban on birth control and IVF — hidden in plain sight,” Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, told Salon in a phone interview. “They’re using language suggesting that they will lead the issue to the states because they know how unpopular banning abortion and other forms of reproductive health care is, and so they’re trying to conceal and mislead the public.”
- “The key to their true agenda here is the suggestion that the 14th Amendment of the federal constitution somehow empowers states to ban abortion,” Kolbi-Molinas said. “They are signaling that embryos and fetuses are persons under the 14th Amendment, which is simply not true. And if that were the case, if embryos and fetuses had constitutional rights under the due process clause, states would be required to ban abortion.”
- The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States” and provides citizens with “equal protection under the laws.” If fetuses and embryos were included in this, states that have already enshrined abortion rights into their state constitutions, such as California, would still have to pass abortion bans. This is because the federal constitution, and federal law generally, take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions.
- “Under this platform, states would be forced to ban abortion, and state laws protecting abortion, including those who have been passed recently by ballot through direct democracy, would be challenged and overturned,” Kolbi-Molinas said. “And it’s not just abortion, giving constitutional rights to embryos and fetuses that override the rights of the pregnant person — which is what they would seek to do here with the 14th Amendment — that also leads to bans on birth control, on IVF and on other forms of reproductive health care.”
- David S. Cohen, a professor of law at Drexel Kline’s School of Law, told Salon he agreed.
- “I think it’s their holy grail,” he said, adding that it wouldn’t just be abortion being banned. IVF, he said, would be threatened or “probably banned.” Contraception would be “suspect” and “possibly murder.” Miscarriages and stillbirths would be investigated. Anything that might be considered to be the possibility of a fertilized egg reaching its demise could be a “crime scene.”
- “To think that a political party that has been so focused on banning abortion as broadly as possible for decades is actually changing its mission is foolish,” Cohen said. “They may be trying to mask their position given the electoral politics, but they aren’t changing anything.”
See also: Larry Hogan’s Republican Party Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide & Republican Larry Hogan Doubles Down on Refusing to Oppose Anti-Abortion Rights Judges