Search form

You are here

  • Home
  • Social conservatives push Trump to back federal role on abortion


Social conservatives push Trump to back federal role on abortion

Anti-abortion activists protest as reproductive rights activists demonstrate in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 24, 2024. (AFP/File)
Short Url

https://arab.news/2wt4v

Updated 03 July 2024
Reuters
Follow

Social conservatives push Trump to back federal role on abortion

Updated 03 July 2024
Reuters

WASHINGTON: A leading US anti-abortion group on Tuesday warned Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump not to water down language in the party platform on abortion restrictions, the most visible sign yet of a widening fissure between Trump and social conservatives on the issue.

The reproach by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser comes as party members head to Milwaukee to draft the platform, which serves as a statement of policy principles, ahead of what is intended to be a national show of unity at the party’s convention this month.

For weeks, anti-abortion activists have been expressing concerns that the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee would work to weaken language in the platform by eliminating any reference to a federal role in restricting abortion.

Trump has said the issue should be left solely to state legislatures in the wake of a US Supreme Court decision in 2022 that gutted constitutional protection for the procedure. He has argued that is a more politically tenable position, with polls showing a majority of Americans broadly backing abortion rights.

In a statement on Tuesday, Dannenfelser said the longtime, battle-tested alliance between the grassroots anti-abortion movement and the Republican, or GOP, Party was in jeopardy.

“If the Trump campaign decides to remove national protections for the unborn in the GOP platform, it would be a miscalculation that would hurt party unity and destroy pro-life enthusiasm between now and the election,” Dannenfelser said.

Members of the Republican Party’s platform committee are scheduled to meet privately in Milwaukee ahead of the July 15-18 convention, where Trump will be formally tapped as the party’s presidential nominee for the Nov. 5 election against President Joe Biden, a Democrat who is campaigning in favor of abortion rights.

In her statement, Dannenfelser suggested that anti-abortion groups were being shut out of the process of crafting the platform.

“We are now just two business days away from the platform committee meeting and no assurances have been made,” she said. “Instead, every indication is that the campaign will muscle through changes behind closed doors.”

Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said no definitive decisions had been made on the platform’s contents.

“The platform committee has yet to convene to discuss what language should be in the final document,” Alvarez said. She did not respond to questions about whether the anti-abortion groups have a say in the process.

EVANGELICAL PRESSURE

Last month, a bevy of anti-abortion advocates, including prominent evangelical Christians such as Ralph Reed and Tony Perkins, sent a letter to Trump sharing concerns similar to Dannenfelser’s.

They called on the campaign to ensure that language be retained in the platform that explicitly says a fetus has a “fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.” They have also urged passage of federal legislation to grant protection to fetuses under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which outlines the rights of US citizens, and want a further so-called

“human life amendment” added to the Constitution.

Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council who served as an evangelical adviser to Trump’s administration, has launched an online “platform integrity project” to apply grassroots pressure to Trump and party leaders to keep the current abortion language.

A member of the RNC platform committee, Perkins sent a letter to RNC Chair Michael Whatley on Monday complaining that advocates and the media would be shut out of the platform deliberations under a “gag rule” imposed by the party.

“The RNC Gag Rule heightens speculation that the GOP platform will be watered down to a few pages of meaningless, poll-tested talking points,” Perkins wrote.

The Trump campaign in a memo last month to the platform committee urged that it boil down the document to a statement of basic tenets absent of “Washington jargon” and the “shackles of lobbyist influence.”

While Trump relied on strong support from evangelicals during the Republican nominating contest, he has consistently maintained that an extreme stance on abortion hurts the party’s electoral chances and has frowned upon six-week bans like those passed by states such as Florida.

He has argued that his appointment of three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the seminal abortion case Roe v. Wade stands as proof of his anti-abortion bona fides.

Topics: US Donald Trump

Related

World
Trump ‘wants to take America back to 1800s’ on abortion: VP Harris
World
France becomes the only country to explicitly guarantee abortion as a constitutional right

Half of Palestine Action supporters arrested in London older than 60: Police data

Updated 6 sec ago
Arab News
Follow

Half of Palestine Action supporters arrested in London older than 60: Police data

  • Saturday’s protest was against the UK’s banning of the group, with 532 arrests made
  • Ex-government adviser: ‘We are living through a genocide on our TV screens’
Updated 6 sec ago
Arab News

LONDON: Half of the protesters arrested in London on Saturday in relation to the banned group Palestine Action are older than 60, police data shows.

Officers arrested 532 people at the mass demonstration against the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last month, The Guardian reported.

All except 10 were arrested under Section 13 of the UK’s Terrorism Act for displaying placards or signs in support of a banned group.

London’s Metropolitan Police on Sunday released an age breakdown of the people arrested at the demonstration. Almost 100 were in their 70s and 15 were aged 80 or older.

The event was organized in Parliament Square by Defend Our Juries, which requested that protesters hold signs saying: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

Police arrested high-profile former government and military figures. Jonathon Porritt, 75, a former adviser to the government of Tony Blair, said he is deeply concerned by the erosion of civil liberties in Britain under successive governments.

Police arrested him under Section 13 and he was bailed until Oct. 23. He described the ban on Palestine Action as “a measure of the government’s desperation” that is “entirely inappropriate.”

Porritt said: “I thought this was overreach by the home secretary, trying to eliminate the voices of those who are deeply concerned about what is happening in Gaza.

“This was an absolutely clear case of a government using its powers to crush dissenting voices when it is the government itself that is most reprehensible for what continues to be an absolute horror story in the world.

“What we are seeing now in Gaza has just utterly shocked people and it’s completely abhorrent that we are living through a genocide on our TV screens.”

Some people who attended the protest complained that police detained older demonstrators for hours in the hot summer weather and denied them access to water.

Defend Our Juries on Sunday said everyone arrested had been released from police custody and no charges had been issued.

The Met Police said: “There was water available at the prisoner processing points and access to toilets. We had police medics on hand as part of the policing operation and we processed people as quickly as possible to ensure nobody was waiting an unreasonably long time.

“Notwithstanding that, a degree of personal responsibility is required on the part of those who chose to come and break the law.

“They knew they were very likely to be arrested which is a decision that will inevitably have consequences.”

Chris Romberg, a 75-year-old former British Army officer colonel and a military attache at the British embassies in Jordan and Egypt, was also arrested under Section 13 and bailed.

“This is a serious assault on our freedoms,” Romberg, the son of a Holocaust survivor told, The Guardian. “When I protested against the US war in Vietnam, we were able to chant ‘victory to the NLF’ without being criminalized.

“Now a statement of support for a nonviolent direct-action group is prosecuted under anti-terrorism legislation.”

Award-winning poet Alice Oswald, 58, told officers who had detained her to write to the home secretary about the position they were forced into as a result of the Palestine Action ban.

She said: “Clearly there were some police officers who were really struggling with what they had to do. You could see the slightly shifty look in their faces, too.

“When I was speaking to them in the police van I did say: ‘Write to Yvette Cooper and tell her that this is making your life impossible’.”

She told The Guardian that she was partly motivated to attend the demonstration after delivering online poetry classes to young people in Gaza.

Since the proscription of Palestine Action in July, 10 people have been charged for suspected offenses under the Terrorism Act.

Topics: Palestine Action London UK

Related

Update video
World
UK arrests 365 protesters backing banned Palestine Action group
video
World
UK police arrested 522 who backed banned pro-Palestine group

Spain orders town to scrap motion restricting Muslim festivities

Updated 39 min 41 sec ago
AFP
Follow

Spain orders town to scrap motion restricting Muslim festivities

  • Spain’s leftist government on Monday ordered a town to drop a ban on religious celebrations in municipal sports facilities, a measure critics say was aimed at blocking longstanding Muslim festivities
Updated 39 min 41 sec ago
AFP

MADRID: Spain’s leftist government on Monday ordered a town to drop a ban on religious celebrations in municipal sports facilities, a measure critics say was aimed at blocking longstanding Muslim festivities.
The town council of Jumilla, in the southeastern region of Murcia, approved the ban last week with support from the conservative Popular Party (PP), saying it sought to “promote and preserve the traditional values” of the area.
Far-right party Vox had demanded the measure in exchange for backing the PP mayor’s municipal budget.
Spain’s national government swiftly denounced the ban, with minister for inclusion and migration Elma Sainz calling it a “racist motion.”
Territorial Policy Minister Angel Víctor Torres announced on X on Monday that the central government had formally ordered the Jumilla council to scrap the ban, arguing it violates the constitution.
Jumilla, a wine-producing town of about 27,000 people, has a significant Muslim community, many of whom work in the agricultural sector.
For years, the community has used sports venues for celebrations such as Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
The controversy comes just weeks after far-right groups and immigrant residents clashed for several nights in another Murcia town following an assault on a retired man by a young North African.
Even Spain’s Catholic Church criticized the ban in Jumilla, saying public religious expressions are protected under the right to religious freedom.
Vox leader Santiago Abascal said he was “perplexed” by the Church’s stance, suggesting it might be tied to public funding or to clergy abuse scandals that he claimed have “gagged” the institution.

Topics: Spain

Related

video
World
Spain breaks up ring smuggling Yemenis to UK, Canada
World
Fire contained, historic mosque-cathedral in southern Spain ‘saved’

Pakistan suspends train services after railway bombing in insurgency-hit Balochistan

Updated 55 min 5 sec ago
AP
Follow

Pakistan suspends train services after railway bombing in insurgency-hit Balochistan

  • Balochistan has long been the scene of insurgency by separatists seeking independence from the central government; it is also home to militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban
Updated 55 min 5 sec ago
AP

QUETTA: Pakistan’s railways on Monday suspended all train services to and from an insurgency-hit southwestern province for four days after separatists blew up a railway track, derailing six cars of a passenger train, officials said.
No one was harmed in the attack Sunday in Mastung, a district in Balochistan, said railways spokesman Ikram Ullah. Engineers were repairing the damaged track, he said.
The Jaffer Express was traveling from Quetta, the provincial capital, to the northern city of Peshawar when assailants targeted it with a bomb, Ullah said.
The banned Baloch Liberation Army, in a statement, claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes months after BLA fighters hijacked a train in the same district, killing 21 hostages before security forces were able to kill 33 assailants.
The attack came as Pakistan prepares to mark its 78th Independence Day on Aug. 14.
Balochistan has long been the scene of insurgency by separatists seeking independence from the central government. The province is also home to militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban.
Local administrator Shahid Khan said the government imposed curfews in some areas of the district of Bajaur along the Afghan border in the troubled northwest and advised residents to stay indoors, prompting many to flee to safer places in preparation for a possible security operation against the Pakistani Taliban.
Bajaur was once a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, who are known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, and the group has resurfaced there. TTP is a separate group but closely allied to the Afghan Taliban.

Topics: Pakistan Taliban

Related

Pakistan
Pakistan issues flood alert for River Sutlej over possible water discharge from India
Pakistan
Nearly half of Pakistani businessmen confident in country’s direction — Gallup

Italy’s defense minister says Israel has ‘lost humanity’ on Gaza

Updated 11 August 2025
AFP
Follow

Italy’s defense minister says Israel has ‘lost humanity’ on Gaza

Updated 11 August 2025
AFP

ROME: Italy’s defense minister said in an interview published Monday that Israel’s government had “lost its reason and humanity” over Gaza and signalled an openness to potential sanctions.
“What is happening is unacceptable. We are not facing a military operation with collateral damage, but the pure denial of the law and the founding values of our civilization,” Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told La Stampa daily.
“We are committed to humanitarian aid, but we must now find a way to force Netanyahu to think clearly, beyond condemnation.”
Asked about possible international sanctions against Israel, Crosetto said that “the occupation of Gaza and some serious acts in the West Bank mark a qualitative leap, in the face of which decisions must be made that force Netanyahu to think.”
“And it wouldn’t be a move against Israel, but a way to save that people from a government which has lost reason and humanity.
“We must always distinguish governments from states and peoples, as well as from the religions they profess. This applies for Netanyahu, and it applies to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, whose methods, by now, have become dangerously similar.”
He was speaking after Netanyahu defended his plan to take control of Gaza City and target the remaining Hamas strongholds, a plan which has sparked criticism from across the world.
Italy has declined to join other nations in saying it would recognize a Palestinian state — a decision Crosetto defended, saying that “recognizing a state that doesn’t exist risks turning into nothing but a political provocation in a world dying of provocations.”

Topics: Israel Gaza Italy

Related

Middle-East
Israel steps up Gaza City bombing after Netanyahu vow to expand the offensive
Media
Netanyahu announces plan to allow foreign reporters into Gaza

Four days left to square the circle on global plastic pollution treaty

Updated 11 August 2025
AFP
Follow

Four days left to square the circle on global plastic pollution treaty

  • The 184 countries meeting at the United Nations to sculpt a first international accord setting out the way forward return to the negotiating table after a day off Sunday to reflect on their differences
Updated 11 August 2025
AFP

GENEVA: Countries remained at loggerheads Monday over how to tackle plastic pollution, with only four days left to craft a landmark global treaty on reining in the ever-growing scourge.
While plastic has transformed modern life, plastic pollution poses an increasing threat to the environment and the human body — and every day the garbage accumulates on land and in the oceans.
The 184 countries meeting at the United Nations to sculpt a first international accord setting out the way forward return to the negotiating table after a day off Sunday to reflect on their differences.
The first week of talks in Geneva fell behind schedule and failed to produce a clear text, with states still deeply divided at square one: the purpose and scope of the treaty they started negotiating two and a half years ago.
Last week, working groups met on technical topics ranging from the design of plastic to waste management, production, financing for recycling, plastic reuse, and funding waste collection in developing countries.
They also discussed molecules and chemical additives that pose environmental and health risks.


A nebulous cluster of mostly oil-producing states calling themselves the Like-Minded Group want the treaty to focus primarily on waste management.
The United States and India are also close to this club.
At the other end of the spectrum, a growing faction calling themselves the “ambitious” group want radical action written into the treaty, including measures to curb the damage caused by plastic garbage, such as phasing out the most dangerous chemicals.
Plastic pollution is so ubiquitous that microplastics have been found on the highest mountain peaks, in the deepest ocean trench and scattered throughout almost every part of the human body.
The ambitious group wants a clause reining in plastic production, which is set to triple by 2060.
The club brings together the European Union, many African and Latin American countries, Australia, Britain, Switzerland and Canada.
It also includes island micro-nations drowning in plastic trash they did little to produce and have little capacity to deal with.
Palau, speaking for 39 small island developing states (SIDS), said the treaty had to deal with removing the plastic garbage “already choking our oceans.”
“SIDS will not stand by while our future is bartered away in a stalemate,” and “this brinkmanship has a real price: a dying ocean,” the Micronesian archipelago said.


The treaty is set to be settled by universal consensus; but with countries far apart, the lowest-ambition countries are quite comfortable not budging, observers said.
“We risk having a meaningless treaty without any binding global rules like bans and phase-outs. This is unacceptable,” Eirik Lindebjerg, global plastics adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature, told AFP.
“Expecting any meaningful outcome to this process through consensus is a delusion. With the time remaining, the ambitious governments must come together as a majority to finalize the treaty text and prepare to agree it through a vote.”
Without touching on whether ambitious countries would ultimately abandon consensus and go for a vote, the EU’s environment commissioner Jessika Roswall, due in Geneva on Monday, urged countries to speed up negotiations and not “miss this historic opportunity.”
The draft treaty has ballooned from 22 to 35 pages — with the number of brackets in the text going up near five-fold to almost 1,500 as countries insert a blizzard of conflicting wishes and ideas.
“With four more days to go, we have more square brackets in the text than plastic in the sea. It’s time to get results,” Roswall said.
In total, 70 ministers and around 30 senior government officials are expected in Geneva from Tuesday onwards and could perhaps help break the deadlock.

Topics: UN Pollution

Related

World
UN plastic pollution treaty talks progress not ‘sufficient’: chair
World
One billion Africans being harmed by cooking pollution

Latest updates

At US reception, Pakistan army chief vows ‘crushing response’ to Indian aggression — Bloomberg
Pakistan gets offers in 100,000-ton white sugar tender, traders say
Western Wall in Jerusalem vandalized with anti-war message
Mourners gather in Gaza for funeral of Al Jazeera staff killed by Israel
US congressman discusses with Syrian president return of body of American killed in Syria

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2025 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.