Abortion Was A Non-Topic At The RNC
“Abortion” was something of a dirty word at this year’s Republican National Convention, despite it being one of the biggest issues of the 2024 election and something the GOP has long fought to restrict.
None of the convention’s speakers made it a central point of their speeches. Compare that to the 2020 RNC, when the word “abortion” was uttered nearly 20 times in a single night. That year, the party also featured anti-abortion activists as speakers, who called the election a choice between “radical anti-life activists and the most pro-life president we have ever had.”
Republicans’ silence on the matter also puts them in stark contrast with Democrats, who have made the fight for reproductive rights a central fixture of President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. On Thursday alone, the last day of the RNC, Biden’s campaign mentioned abortion in at least four email blasts to reporters.
“Trump is not moderating on abortion,” one of the campaign emails read. “His record is clear. He brags about being ‘proudly the person responsible’ for overturning Roe and calls abortion bans ‘a beautiful thing to watch’ and ‘something we should cherish.’”
The silence seems clearly strategic. The GOP appears to have realized abortion is a losing issue; voters in Kentucky, Kansas and Ohio — all red or red-leaning states — voted to protect abortion access after the fall of Roe v. Wade, as have voters in multiple blue states.
Trump once regularly boasted about his role in overturning Roe and went on graphic rants about a non-existent reality in which Democrats cheer on doctors who “abort” newborn babies (which is homicide, and illegal).
After facing pressure to clarify exactly what type of abortion he opposes, Trump said in April that he wouldn’t sign a national abortion ban if elected.
However, he said nothing about a potential backdoor plan to ban the distribution of abortion pills by mail by way of the Comstock Act, a rarely invoked 1873 law that bans the mailing of “obscene” material. Vance, among dozens of other GOP lawmakers, advocated for using the law to ban the mailing of abortion pills last year.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, his running mate, also appears to have taken a cue from Trump and toned down his anti-abortion rhetoric, even though he once advocated for a nationwide ban and spoke out against rape and incest exceptions.
Neither of the men mentioned abortion or reproductive rights in their speeches this week. It wasn’t that Trump didn’t have enough time; his speech was the longest presidential acceptance speech in documented RNC history. Neither did any of the RNC speakers known for their heavy anti-abortion rhetoric, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), bring the issue up.
In place of abortion, Republicans turned to vitriolic rhetoric about immigrants and transgender Americans, frustration with the economy and opposition to Democrats’ climate change agenda, among other topics.
