(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Jonathon discusses the 2024 Republican Party platform’s softened stances on abortion and same-sex “marriage” and some of the shenanigans that silenced pro-life voices when the platform was adopted.

Jonathon begins the show by explaining how the 2024 Republican platform departs from previous positions on abortion and deletes lines that go back decades.

“For the first time in 40 years, the platform doesn’t include support for a national abortion ban or contain a line that has been in the GOP’s platform since 1984: ‘The unborn child has a fundamental, individual right to life which cannot be infringed.’” Jonathan said. “That is the key phrase that Phyllis Schlafly and other pro-life leaders fought so hard to put in the platform.”

The 2024 GOP platform instead states: “The power to pass laws on abortion is the purview of the individual states.” He noted that while the platform does oppose late-term abortion, it supports birth control and IVF in the very same sentence.

Jonathon then detailed the shenanigans that took place to silence pro-life and socially conservative delegates when they met to approve the platform in at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received this insight from one of the delegates, Gayle Ruzicka, the president of the Utah Eagle Forum.

READ: Vivek Ramaswamy touts watered-down GOP platform on abortion, homosexual ‘marriage’

“In previous years, the committee process would take a couple of days with subcommittees meeting, proposing amendments, and then thoroughly discussing the platform before voting on it. When Ruzicka flew into Milwaukee, that’s exactly what she was expecting would take place. But that is not what happened when delegates arrived in Milwaukee on the weekend of July 7-8. In fact, it was all over by 11:30 in the morning, before lunchtime on Monday,” Jonathon said.

Ruzicka told Jonathon that delegates were told during orientation that weekend that they’d work through the platform in subcommittees, but they were never convened and never mentioned again. On Monday morning, delegates had their phones taken from them and saw the platform draft for the first time. The delegates were given the opportunity to make statements on the draft for just 60 seconds, but new delegates quickly formed lines and made sure pro-life voices wouldn’t get the chance to speak.  

“They wouldn’t take anything, no discussion, no amendments, it was shocking, absolutely shocking. We tried to protest, but they wouldn’t let us. They wouldn’t even let us go to the microphones,” Ruzicka had told Jonathon.

Jonathon noted this is part of a broader pivot from Trump’s GOP in the last year. He emphasized that while the Republican Party hasn’t been perfect, it’s been the only vehicle for the pro-life movement and opponents of the sexual revolution. “If we lose the Republican Party as a vehicle, we could lose it for a generation. If the Republicans successfully abandon the babies, if they abandon the abortion issue, we may never get that party back.”

He pushed back on the claim that Trump simply holds a federalist view on abortion that it’s up to the states, underscoring that he has only condemned the states that are passing strong pro-life laws like Florida, which has a six-week ban, but not those that enshrine abortion “rights.”

“If his position is that it’s up to the states, but he only condemns the states that are passing pro-life laws, it’s pretty clear to everybody what’s going on here,” he said.

Jonathon also cited as evidence of Trump dragging the party in a more moderate direction the fact that Republicans who were once champions for the unborn have caved on the issue in light of the new platform, such as Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Ohio Senator and vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance. Rubio said in part of a 2012 SBA List Supporters speech that at the end of his life he would not be held to account for tax cuts or economic policy but for what he did for the unborn. Vance, who has also been seen as a pro-life senator, recently endorsed Trump’s view on the abortion pill.

Towards the show’s end, Jonathon reminded listeners of an uncomfortable truth about former President Trump. “Donald Trump is a liberal Manhattan businessman; he is a TV showman. He has some great virtues, like he has incredible courage, which we saw on display during that assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. But, on the other hand, he simply does not share our values.”

For more analysis on the Republican Party’s shift on abortion, same-sex “marriage,” and socially conservative issues, tune in to this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show.

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