AS DEMOCRATS EMBRACE ABORTION CULTURE,
REPUBLICAN PARTY EMBRACES LIFE
National Right to Life calls GOP platform "strongest ever"

WASHINGTON – As the Democratic Party officially nominates pro-abortion Senator Barack Obama for president and pro-abortion Senator Joe Biden for vice-president during the third day of their convention in Denver, the Republican Party Platform Committee, meeting in Minneapolis, adopted the strongest and most explicit support of life ever expressed by a major political party.

"We applaud the Republican Party, and especially the members of the platform committee representing grassroots pro-life Republicans across the country, for making such a strong and unequivocal stand supporting life at all stages," said National Right to Life Political Director Karen Cross from Minneapolis.  "The work of the platform committee makes clear, in no uncertain terms, that the Republican Party is the pro-life party."

The platform, as approved today, states in part:

Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all 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 we 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 and will not fund organizations which advocate it.  We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity and dignity of innocent human life.

We have made progress.  The Supreme Court has upheld prohibitions against the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion.  States are now permitted to extend health-care coverage to children before birth.  And the Born Alive Infants Protection Act has become law; this law ensures that infants who are born alive during an abortion receive all treatment and care that is provided to all newborn infants and are not neglected and left to die.  We must protect girls from exploitation and statutory rape through a parental notification requirement.  We all have a moral obligation to assist, not to penalize, women struggling with the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy.  At its core, abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life.  Women deserve better than abortion.  Every effort should be made to work with women considering abortion to enable and empower them to choose life.  We salute those who provide them alternatives, including pregnancy care centers, and we take pride in the tremendous increase in adoptions that has followed Republican legislative initiatives. 

Respect for life requires efforts to include persons with disabilities in education, employment, the justice system, and civic participation.  In keeping with that commitment, we oppose the non-consensual withholding of care or treatment from people with disabilities, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide, which endanger especially those on the margins of society....

The Republican Party platform stands in sharp contrast to the platform approved this week by delegates at the Democratic Convention which stated, in part. that the Democratic Party "strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right."  As noted by National Right to Life earlier this week, gone are former references of the Democratic Party's desire to see abortion as "rare."

"The Democrats have gone out of their way to alienate America's pro-life majority by embracing the radical pro-abortion agenda of Barack Obama," said National Right to Life Co-Executive Director Darla St. Martin.  "The Republican Party has once again demonstrated that it is completely in line with the majority of Americans who oppose the vast majority of abortions."

Karen Cross and Darla St. Martin are in Minneapolis for the platform hearings and available for comment.  To arrange interviews, please contact the National Right to Life media department at (202) 626-8825 or (202) 423-3329.

The National Right to Life Committee is the nation's largest pro-life group with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide.  National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and assisted suicide.