(NewsNation) — The fight to include support for stricter abortion measures in the 2024 Republican Party platform has ended following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, according to reporting from Politico.
More than 20 anti-abortion advocates from the Republican National Committee’s Platform Committee had originally planned to protest the GOP’s subdued abortion policies on the convention floor at this week’s Republican National Convention.
But on Monday, delegates overwhelmingly voted to approve the watered-down policy plan, adopting Trump’s views on abortion and pledging to allow individual states to set their own restrictions. Some in the Republican Party have advocated for national abortion restrictions.
Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who co-chairs the RNC’s platform committee, said it was “personally reviewed, edited, and approved” by Trump, who has publicly supported state-by-state abortion rights in the past.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and a platform committee member, told POLITICO his group wanted to push for more stringent national abortion limits rather than the state-by-state limits backed by Trump.
But a shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, that injured the former president, killed a firefighter and critically hurt two more civilians brought that plan to a stop.
“Given today, and everything that has occurred, if the opportunity were there (for a floor fight) we wouldn’t take it at this point,” Perkins told POLITICO. “Don’t take our silence as being indifferent to what took place, it’s just timing.”
Perkins and fellow anti-abortion activists believe the GOP’s new platform lost decades of progress on the abortion front, with less federal oversight and no mention of the 14th Amendment to protect “unborn children” as key issues.