Abortion foes seek vows from 2024 GOP hopefuls
Leading anti- abortion groups, fresh off their historic victory with the demise of Roe v. Wade, are drawing up plans for a new goal in the 2024 presidential election: Ensuring the Republican nominee promises to back nationwide restrictions on abortion.
One of the most influential groups, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, is likely to ask candidates to sign a pledge supporting a federal minimum limit on abortion at no later than 15 weeks of pregnancy.
“If any GOP primary candidate fails to summon the moral courage to endorse a 15week gestational minimum standard, then they don’t deserve to be the president of the United States,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of SBA Pro-Life America, who was instrumental in extracting anti-abortion promises from former president Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, is exploring holding candidate forums or debates, where the issue of abortion would be front and center. And Students for Life Action is developing a survey asking candidates whether they’ll promise to appoint cabinet members who oppose abortion, such as in the justice and health departments; if they’d sign legislation to restrict abortions early in pregnancy; their stances on abortion pills and more.
“Our biggest challenge right now is making sure we get everyone on the record and for them to understand that we expect substantial action to be taken,” said Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life Action. She added: “We want to make sure that every candidate knows that they’re going to have to be ready to make their case for life.”
The Supreme Court’s decision last June striking down a constitutional protection for abortion rights means such questions are no longer merely hypothetical. If Republicans win enough House and Senate seats in a future election, they could feasibly pass some kind of federal abortion limit — and activists are determined to nail down presidential candidates on whether and to what extent they’d go along with it.
Exactly where to land on the issue may not be easy for all GOP presidential hopefuls. Former president Donald Trump jumped into the race first, and though he put a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, he frustrated anti-abortion groups for comments blaming GOP losses last November on “the abortion issue,” particularly candidates who opposed exceptions for rape and incest. Mr. Trump cheered the Supreme Court decision last summer but didn’t respond to questions about where he stands on national restrictions on abortion.
Abortion-rights groups scored major victories during last year’s midterm elections, even in some conservativeleaning states, and are aiming to build on that momentum. Democrats contend the results show the public is on their side, and nearly twothirds of adults say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan group that surveyed Americans’ attitudes toward abortion last year.
Anti- abortion leaders blame the midterm results on some Republican candidates who failed to paint Democrats as extreme or who shied away from talking about abortion — and now they’re warning upcoming GOP presidential contenders to take firm stances on the issue. They were particularly critical of Mehmet Oz, a Republican who lost his Senate race in Pennsylvania and said “there should not be involvement from the federal government in how states decide their abortion decisions,” instead citing local politicians.
Most of the Republican field is expected to be unified in opposing abortion. But divisions are likely to emerge when drilling down into specific policies, such as how early in pregnancy to restrict abortion, what exceptions should be allowed and whether some of those decisions should be left up to states.
Even anti-abortion groups differ in how far to push GOP candidates, with some saying they’d be on board with a candidate who expresses support for a 15-week limit and others wanting to press for at least a “heartbeat” ban after fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically around six weeks.
In addition to likely asking candidates to sign a pledge, Ms. Dannenfelser said her group is aiming to be involved in candidate forums in Iowa and South Carolina, at a minimum. The group has long assessed candidates’ records and public statements on abortion and spent millions in each election cycle, though it usually doesn’t make endorsements in the primary, with the exception of Rick Santorum in 2012. Armed with a budget that’s expected to be “significantly more” than last election cycle’s $78 million, the group is planning its ground game in presidential and Senate battleground states, which includes the traditionaldoor knocking, digital ads and mailers.
Both the Heritage Foundation and its political arm, Heritage Action, want to hear presidential candidates come out in support of what abortion opponents call “heartbeat legislation” or a ban on abortion even earlier in pregnancy.
Roger Severino, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation, said the group will be pushing candidates to be clear about their positions and is working to try to host candidate debates or forums as a venue for them to do so.
“We see the dynamics on the Republican side to be a race for who will be the most articulate spokesperson for life and will actually provide the policy proposals to save the most unborn lives as possible,” said Mr. Severino, who led the federal health department’s civil rights office during the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, Students for Life Action is hammering out a survey to send to candidates once more have announced their presidential ambitions. Its questions will likely include whether the candidate would be willing to sign into law specific bills banning abortion early in pregnancy, how they’d crack down on abortion pills and whether they would defund Planned Parenthood.
The group also may ask about protections for health care workers and pharmacists who raise conscience objections to abortion, as well as questions about judicial and cabinet appointments.
State-level groups could also turn up the pressure. The Family Foundation of Virginia typically doesn’t host presidential forums, since it’s one of the later primary states, but it is discussing doing so this year, said president Victoria Cobb. She added that she’s “not convinced that there’s only one path that pro-lifers will accept,” but that candidates have to “be willing to push the issue forward.”
Texas Values Action typically puts out a candidate questionnaire, and in last year’s midterm elections, the survey included multiple abortion-related asks.
“Now that the U. S. Supreme Court has ruled that abortion is not a constitutional right, there will be a lot of focus on how a candidate has handled the pro-life issue in his or her state or if they’ve been in some other elected position at any other level,” said Jonathan Saenz, the president ofTexas Values Action, whose group typically endorses candidates in the primary and likely will again in the 2024 presidential election cycle. “Their record will be looked at very closely.”
Most of these groups are still firming up their plans since it’s early in the election cycle, but the emerging pressure campaign underscores that abortion will be a top-tier issue in the GOP primary. The Republican National Committee wants to see candidates seize the post-Roe moment, passing a resolution in Januaryformally urging GOP lawmakers to “go on offense in the 2024 election cycle.”
Democratic pollsters say their party has a few messages: to paint this position as extreme and argue the government should be kept out of Americans’ private medical decisions.