Photo credit: Michael Vadon (CC-By-SA 4.0)
Donald Trump will move the Republican Party to the left. This is evidenced by his acceptance of transgenders using the bathroom of their choice, and in the same appearance on the Today Show where he dropped that bomb he also said he would work to add abortion exceptions: rape, incest, and and to save the mother to the GOP platform.
Read the exchange below:
Savannah Guthrie: The Republican platform, every four years, has a provision that states that the rights of an unborn child shall not be infringed, and it makes no exceptions for rape, for incest, or for the life of the mother. Would you want to change the Republican platform to include the exceptions that you have?
Donald Trump: Yes I would, yes I would. Absolutely, for the three exceptions I would.
Guthrie: Would you have an exception for the health of the mother?
Trump: I would leave it for the life of the mother, but I would absolutely have the three exceptions.
Watch below:
Here is what the GOP platform currently says on the subject of life:
Faithful to the “self-evident” truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment, including food and water, from people with disabilities, including newborns, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose active and passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Republican leadership has led the effort to prohibit the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion and permitted States to extend health care coverage to children before birth. We urge Congress to strengthen the Born Alive Infant Protection Act by enacting appropriate civil and criminal penalties on healthcare providers who fail to provide treatment and care to an infant who survives an abortion, including early induction delivery where the death of the infant is intended. We call for legislation to ban sex-selective abortions – gender discrimination in its most lethal form – and to protect from abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain; and we applaud U.S. House Republicans for leading the effort to protect the lives of pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia. We call for a ban on the use of body parts from aborted fetuses for research. We support and applaud adult stem cell research to develop lifesaving therapies, and we oppose the killing of embryos for their stem cells. We oppose federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
We also salute the many States that have passed laws for informed consent, mandatory waiting periods prior to an abortion, and health-protective clinic regulation. We seek to protect young girls from exploitation through a parental consent requirement; and we affirm our moral obligation to assist, rather than penalize, women challenged by an unplanned pregnancy. We salute those who provide them with counseling and adoption alternatives and empower them to choose life, and we take comfort in the tremendous increase in adoptions that has followed Republican legislative initiatives.
Trump’s inclusion of exceptions would weaken the party platform on this issue. If you truly believe in the sanctity of life you believe that life is sacred regardless of how that baby is conceived.
While it is Trump’s desire to change the platform I’m doubtful he will be able to do that. I base this on his inability to recruit and advance delegates. I mean delegates who are actually supportive of him rather than those who are just bound to support him because of their state party rules. I don’t see him having much influence at all over the platform in Cleveland.
Trump has shown that he is all over the map on the life issue, and this is why Right to Life groups in a variety of states have endorsed Ted Cruz over Donald Trump. The man simply can not be trusted with protecting the unborn.