Under Trump, GOP softens abortion stance. Some Michigan conservatives dismayed

• The Republican Party’s 2024 policy platform deemphasizes abortion, upsetting some Michigan conservatives
• ‘It blows my mind,’ said one longtime anti-abortion activist
• Some activists protested RNC convention but opposition quieted after assassination attempt against Donald Trump

LANSING — When Katherine Henry first heard of the Republican Party’s new policy platform, adopted earlier this week at a national convention in Wisconsin, she thought it was political spin.

It was the first time in recent memory the GOP platform did not call for federal restrictions on all abortions, a historically important issue for the party that the newly adopted document mentions only a single time.

Former President Donald Trump, by comparison, is mentioned 19 times.

While the plan does “proudly stand for families and life” and reiterates Republican opposition to late-term abortions, it leaves other abortion policies up to the states and their voters to decide.

Related:

• What is Project 2025? And what would it mean for Michigan?
• As Biden reassures Democrats, cracks emerge in Michigan’s united front
• Donald Trump survives assassination attempt; Michigan reacts

That’s left people like Henry, a constitutional attorney who’s long advocated for conservative causes in Michigan, shocked and concerned over where the party is headed on an issue she holds dear.

While Henry understands the shift may be to try and reach undecided voters, softening the GOP stance on abortion comes with “a huge risk of alienating the genuine constitutional conservatives” within the party, she said.

“It blows my mind,” Henry told Bridge Michigan this week after the national GOP adopted the new platform on a motion by Michigan Republican Party Chair Pete Hoekstra.

Democrats don’t appear to be “coming closer and closer to the middle” to try to pick up more voters,” she said, “so why in the world (would) Republicans?”

Abortion is a defining issue for some Republicans, including former Michigan GOP Chair Kristina Karamo.

“I became a Republican for the issue of saving innocent children from murder,” Karamo wrote on social media last week after the new national platform was first unveiled. “The Republican Party embracing child-sacrifice if states want it, as long as it’s not late-term, is not only abhorrent but is testing the justice side of God.” 

Once a cut-and-dry issue for the party, the GOP’s position on abortion has shifted with Donald Trump, who has proudly touted the role his appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court played in overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.

As president in 2018, Trump advocated for a 20-week national ban on abortion. But as he campaigns to return to the White House, Trump has more recently said he thinks laws governing abortion should be left to the states. 

Those shifts have left many confused on where the GOP currently stands on abortion, including policy experts like Mary Ziegler, a professor at UC Davis Law and one of the world's leading historians on the issue. 

Speaking with Bridge this week, Ziegler said Republican’s 2024 policy platform gives “conflicting signals,” making readers question “exactly, what the position on abortion is.” 

The abortion section includes a reference to the Fourteenth Amendment, for instance, which Republicans have long argued extends the guarantee of “life and liberty” to a fetus still in the womb. 

The opaque policy position could lead anti-abortion conservatives to sit out the election, Ziegler said, especially if Democratic President Joe Biden continues to struggle and Republicans feel confident they’ll win.

“I could see some pro-life Republicans essentially saying, ‘you know, I don't need to vote for (Trump)’,” Ziegler said. “‘He's going to win anyway, and I'm annoyed with the fact that he's taking my vote for granted’.” 

Policy popularity

The topic of abortion has long been a motivating issue for Democratic and Republican voters, including in 2022, when Michiganders approved Proposal 3, which enshrined abortion rights in the state Constitution.  

Not only did voters approve the ballot measure, but they also gave Democrats the party’s first legislative trifecta — control of the House, Senate and governor’s office — in four decades.

Since Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision which granted nationwide abortion access, was overturned in June 2022, 21 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new abortion protections, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, a national human rights organization. 

Another five states, including Florida and South Dakoda, will vote on state-level abortion access this coming November. 

Anti-abortion measures, by comparison, “are not popular right now,” Ziegler said, “particularly when it comes to early abortions.”

It’s no surprise, then, that the national party would adopt a platform “that gives the GOP plausible deniability” to backtrack from strict anti-abortion positions of the past, should they need to, Ziegler said. 

The new platform lets Trump and other Republicans “have it both ways,” Ziegler added, by nodding to potential abortion restrictions while still touting Republican support for “life.”

Separately, the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups have called for more aggressive abortion restrictions through Project 2025, a policy blueprint for a second Trump term that Trump has attempted to distance himself from. 

Proposals in Project 2025 would significantly hamper abortion access by directing the federal government to enforce long dormant federal laws like the Comstock Act — circumventing congressional approval. 

Calls for a ‘stronger’ stance

State Rep. Steve Carra, R-Three Rivers, said conservatives should “embrace a stronger stance” on abortion in Michigan, and in many ways, go on the “offensive,” rather than distance themselves from the topic. 

Carra, a member of the Legislature’s ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, in 2021 introduced legislation to criminalize abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. 

Despite Republican control of the Legislature at the time, that bill ultimately went nowhere. 

Carra argues that for as many undecided voters who approve of some form of abortion access, there are also voters who disapprove of abortion access without some level of limitations.

“It’s a top issue for a lot of voters … and will continue to be on people’s minds when they go to the ballot box,” Carra said. While all conservatives may not agree on exact policies, “hopefully, we can agree to disagree on an issue.”

“But,” he added, “I’m standing up for life.”

Disappointment with Republicans’ 2024 policy platform wasn’t unique to Michigan. 

Scenes from the Republican National Convention this week showed protestors shouting that the platform supported abortion and party members had blood on their hands as a result. 

Most of that fight, however, deescalated ahead of the convention due to a failed assassination attempt on Trump’s life during a rally in Pennsylvania. 

Dissenters indicated that halting their protest didn’t mean they were satisfied with the 2024 platform, just that it didn’t seem proper considering the circumstances.

But for Henry, the Michigan attorney, the party cannot both swear to defend the federal Constitution — which explicitly says states cannot deprive anyone of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” — while allowing states “to pass legislation that takes away those rights,” she said.

“The party platform has been based on the Constitution from day one, and we need to stick with that,” Henry said. “Otherwise, we're no longer the Republican Party.”