WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri declared Friday that “there is no right more important than the right to life” after the Republican National Convention’s abandonment of support for a federal abortion ban.
“There is no right more foundational than the right to life,” Hawley said at Family Research Council’s fourth annual Pray Vote Stand Summit this past weekend. He stressed that this right is not a “luxury,” but is “absolutely foundational to everything we believe in as conservatives.”
Sen. Josh Hawley:
“It’s time that we say clearly, in one voice, there is no right more important than the right to life.” pic.twitter.com/DTazy2gQ8J
— The American Conservative (@amconmag) October 4, 2024
These rights, Hawley noted, are given by “our Creator,” and not by the government — the first of these rights being the right to life.
“Whether they are planned or not … every single person is created in the image of God,” Hawley said. “That is our foundational truth, it is our foundational commitment, and we need to say it boldly, and unashamedly.”
The senator warned that a culture that “does not love life” or “protect the innocent unborn” becomes “callous,” and is “all too willing to discard those it deems weak or unworthy or less than.”
“That is not the United States of America,” he added, having stressed that this right is listed in the Declaration of Independence.
His remarks come a few months after the Republican National Convention’s Platform Committee dropped its longstanding support for federal preborn protections to align the party’s values and priorities with presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The GOP platform specifically axed support for a “human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth,” as well as a call for a 20-week federal limit on abortions.
In its place, the new platform gives a noncommittal acknowledgement of the 14th Amendment while leaving it to individual states to protect the rights it guarantees and endorses birth control (many common methods of which function as abortifacients) and embryo-destructive in vitro fertilization.
Pro-life groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Students for Life endorsed the final language of the platform after expressing initial concern. National Right to Life Committee president Carol Tobias embraced the platform as “ensuring that the party’s goal of protecting women and their preborn children is clearly stated.”
The American Principles Project and Faith & Freedom Coalition also issued endorsements, and Americans United for Life issued a statement detailing both good and bad aspects of the platform, but ultimately joined other conservative groups in signing an endorsement touted by the RNC.
Other pro-life groups and leaders have remained more critical. Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said that while the platform may be a “concise statement of campaign priorities,” it was not a “declaration of enduring principles for a political party.”
“The new GOP platform claims the 14th Amendment guarantees the right to life yet states can decide to legalize killing unborn,” the Personhood Alliance lamented.
Live Action founder and president Lila Rose denounced the new GOP platform on life as “a significant downgrade from what it has been for four decades.”
“This is deeply disappointing and harmful to preborn American children,” Rose said. “Our constitution guarantees every person the right to equal protection; states do not get to decide which innocent people can be unjustly destroyed.”