The Pro-Life Movement Makes A Threat It Can’t Back Up

Abortion opponents will just hurt themselves by leaving the GOP

The GOP released its 2024 platform this week–and pro-lifers are incensed by it. The platform didn’t switch the party to being pro-choice or dropping abortion altogether. It merely called for the issue to be left to the states. For many years, conservatives said Roe v. Wade should be overturned and states should determine whether abortion is legal. This isn’t a new position, yet many pro-lifers are apoplectic about it. These critics insist that the platform must include a nationwide abortion ban of some sort–or else they might leave the party.

This is not a threat that carries much weight. Pro-lifers have shown they don’t have as much of a constituency as they claim. They’ve lost every abortion referendum since Roe v. Wade was overturned. They haven’t mobilized any voters to help Republicans in the races since that big victory, nor have they raised a significant amount of money. The public has strongly swung against the movement’s positions. It’s increasingly dubious that DC-based pro-life groups can command many voters, even among evangelicals.

Pro-lifers assume that they wield the same level of influence as the old religious right did. In the not-so-distant past, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other evangelicals could mobilize hundreds of thousands of voters to make or break candidates. They helped Ronald Reagan and both Bushes become president. They kneecapped John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. The religious right was arguably the most important voter bloc in GOP politics from Reagan to George W. Bush. Even Democrats had to tiptoe around them. One of the movement’s legacies is making the GOP pro-life.

That was then, this is now. The religious right is no longer the organized force it once was. Republicans still depend on evangelicals, but they’ve changed. They’re no longer the footsoldiers of religious leaders. They don’t even attend church very often. This impacts how much they care about abortion.

It’s undoubtedly true that the vast majority of Republican voters are pro-life. This is still an issue that evangelicals and conservative Catholics care about. However, these folks are not single-issue voters. They have many concerns, and Trump understands this.

The New York Times highlighted this new kind of evangelical back in January:

Being evangelical once suggested regular church attendance, a focus on salvation and conversion and strongly held views on specific issues such as abortion. Today, it is as often used to describe a cultural and political identity: one in which Christians are considered a persecuted minority, traditional institutions are viewed skeptically and Mr. Trump looms large.

“Politics has become the master identity,” said Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist pastor. “Everything else lines up behind partisanship.”

This is most true among white Americans, who over the course of Mr. Trump’s presidency became more likely to identify as “evangelical,” even as overall rates of church attendance declined. The trend was particularly pronounced among supporters of Mr. Trump: A 2021 Pew Research Center analysis found that white Americans who expressed “warm views” of him were more likely to have begun identifying as evangelical during his presidency than those who did not.

Columnist Ross Douthat and others have argued that conservatism is degenerating into a “post-Christian Right,” but that’s off the mark. “Post-Church Right” is a better way of seeing it. The vast majority of conservatives still identify as Christians. They just don’t go to church very often or care what religious leaders think. Their Christian identity is more shaped by secular sources rather than the pulpit. The NYT article illustrates this:

Clergy and religion experts are quick to note that people who have left church, or did not attend in the first place, have not necessarily abandoned religion. Evangelicalism has long had an individualistic strain that resists the idea that personal faith requires church attendance. Many people whose connection to organized religion has eroded continue to strongly identify as Christians.

But the drop-off has had impacts far beyond individual spirituality. As ties to church communities have weakened, the church leaders who once rallied the faithful behind causes and candidates have lost influence. A new class of thought leaders has filled the gap: social media personalities and podcasters, once-fringe prophetic preachers and politicians.

This has naturally led to a change in priorities for these voters. They’re no longer as animated about traditional social conservatism. They care more about immigration, wokeness, and the economy. They’re still pro-life; it’s just that abortion is lower on the hierarchy of issues:

In interviews across Iowa, non-churchgoing Christians who supported Republican candidates, even those who said they believed in governing the country by Christian principles, cited immigration and the economy most often as their top issues in this year’s election.

While they almost universally opposed abortion, they were also often skeptical of the more uncompromising policies that candidates like Mr. DeSantis have championed.

These changes have undermined the political might of pro-lifers. These are not voters they can claim are under their sway and ready to bolt if Republicans aren’t sufficiently opposed to abortion. The only people who would depart the GOP are people who work for pro-life groups. This isn’t enough to change an election.

There have been several times in the past few years for pro-lifers to show their muscle at the ballot box. They have yet to do so, as seen in the referendum defeats. 

Pro-lifers have never been fond of Trump. The real estate mogul was pro-choice in most of his public statements before running for president. He did adopt a pro-life line in the 2016 primary and delivered the biggest victory to the movement with his Supreme Court picks. Trump deserves credit for toppling Roe v. Wade. However, pro-lifers have wanted to dump Trump since he left office. Throughout the primary, they threatened to punish Trump for not being pro-life enough. Some even said Trump was finished when he refused to back a national abortion ban. Of course, Trump went on to win the primary with ease. Pro-lifers weren’t able to back their threats then. They won’t be able to do so in the general election.

Pro-lifers need to take account of their situation. They still wield a tremendous amount of influence over the GOP, despite lacking deep-pocketed donors or a mass constituency. Their position gained its strength thanks to the old religious right, which did have a mass constituency. Pro-lifers maintain this position due to professional conservatives–working in GOP organizations, think tanks, and media outlets–who deeply care about abortion. 

Republicans are still pro-life, especially when compared to Democrats. The party platform encourages red states to restrict abortion. Republicans across the country have made it harder to get an abortion since Dobbs. Prior to Dobbs, one could get an abortion in every state. Now that’s a very different story. This has been accomplished in the face of popular opposition, further legitimizing Republican pro-life credentials. The GOP would drop the issue entirely if they only cared about what was popular. Instead, Republicans offer a realistic position that allows pro-lifers to restrict abortion. A nationwide ban would never pass anyway. It would only serve to hurt Republicans in November, which then would limit their ability to pass any pro-life measures. It’s foolish to demand Republicans adopt an unrealistic, unpopular position that would only hurt them at the polls. If pro-lifers could win one abortion referendum, they would have more ground to stand on. So far, they lack that standing.

The ability for pro-lifers to affect policy can disappear if they declare they’re not voting for Trump–and Trump wins. This would further cement their status as an easily ignorable lobby that can neither deliver votes nor money. The GOP would move toward dropping abortion as an issue altogether while Democrats reaffirm their support for abortion up until birth. Pro-lifers can pretend they command the votes of hundreds of thousands, but they will further marginalize themselves when this constituency still votes for Trump.

It’s a normal part of politics for people to critique a party platform for failing to satisfy a particular interest. But to make empty threats over a platform is just bad politics. Pro-lifers have achieved massive victories with Trump’s GOP, all the while not proving they can help the party win elections. They are not in a strong position to expect full satisfaction of their demands. If they want a national abortion ban in the party platform, they need to prove that it’s a winning issue that can galvanize millions of voters. Until then, they can advance the issue through the states and remember who gave them this ability. 

Hint: He will be on the ballot in November.