WASHINGTON (AP) – Former Vice President Mike Pence used a Friday gathering of some of the nation’s top Christian conservatives to urge his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination to support a 15-week federal abortion. minimum restriction.
The call at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference, comes one day before the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, has become a challenge for the GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, who has been reluctant to endorse the federal abortion ban. The former president addressed the evangelical assembly last Saturday night.
“We must not rest and we must not relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state of the country,” Pence said. “Every Republican candidate for president should support banning abortion before 15 weeks as a nationwide minimum standard.”
Pence is one of several 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls — including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott in South Carolina – to speak Friday before a ballroom of about 500 attendees. All candidates touted their anti-abortion credentials while urging like-minded activists to stay on the political offensive, even as leading Democrats insisted their party’s defense of those Abortion rights will be a 2024 boon for them.
DeSantis, who signed a Florida law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, touted the move in a nod to Trump’s veiled criticism last month that it was “too bad.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” DeSantis told the crowd. “Don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t.”
DeSantis has been less clear on where he stands on a federal abortion ban.
Not far from the conference venue in Washington, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris rallied Friday with abortion rights supporters to mark the anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
That decision, issued on June 24, 2022, ended abortion protections in the federal constitution and paved the way for a near-total ban. in some Republican-led states. Democrats have promised to codify the right to an abortion in federal law, but lack the votes in Congress to do so.
“Since that dark day in June last year, each of you has worked tirelessly to fight back,” Biden told activists from reproductive rights groups. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Referring to the supporters of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, the president added, “What is really remarkable is that despite the will of the American people, the MAGA Republicans have made it clear that they will not stop the Dobbs decision.”
After stronger-than-expected results in last year’s midterm elections, Democrats believe issues surrounding abortion access can galvanize their base, attracting moderates alienated from hardliners. of the GOP and help the party hold the Senate, flip the House and re-elect Biden
Even Trump has suggested that further abortion restrictions are a weakness for Republicans, despite his three Supreme Court nominees comprising the majority of justices who voted to overturn Roe last year.
He posted on his social media site in January that the party’s poor midterm performance was “not my fault” and blamed “‘the abortion issue,’ mismanagement by many Republicans, especially those -on that insists on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother.”
Yet the mood at Friday’s Faith & Freedom Coalition session was upbeat, with attendees cheering at every mention of Roe v. Wade. “Thank God almighty for the Dobbs decision,” Scott told the crowd.
Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, said the conference dates were set years ago, so the fact that it coincided with Dobbs’ anniversary was a “serendipitous coincidence.” However, he said the gathering is to ensure that the leading Republican candidates are not complacent when it comes to opposing abortion.
“We’re really doing everything we can, as an organization and as a pro-life and pro-family movement, to give our candidates a little testosterone booster shot and explain to them that they don’t need to be defensive ,” Reed said in an interview before the conference began. “Those who fear this need, frankly, to grow a backbone.”
Reed drew a standing ovation when he opened the gathering by saying that “after 50 years of prayer, and fasting and knocking on doors and choosing candidates and registering voters and also in the culture of our country, Roe v Wade has been overturned.”
Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, head of the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm, said this week that top Republican presidential candidates will back a nationwide ban to win support in their GOP primaries, then move to a more moderate position for the general election.
“They can’t get away with that,” Peters said.
Among the GOP candidates, Pence has previously said he would support banning abortion in the country after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.
His declaration on Friday that the 15-week ban should be the “minimum nationwide standard” mirrored a call from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. The organization has pledged not to support any candidate for the White House who does not support a 15-week federal ban at the very least.
Scott also praised South Carolina’s six-week ban and supported a 15-week federal ban. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley supports a federal ban but has not said at what point in pregnancy she would seek to ban abortion.
Trump avoided specifying which country limits, if any, he would support on abortion.
A deeply devout, evangelical Christian, Pence was greeted more warmly at this year’s Faith & Freedom Coalition conference than he was the last time he addressed the group in 2021. Then, he was booed by some and confronted by those shout “traitor.” That event, held in Florida, came months after the January 6 uprising at the US Capitol, when Pence defied Trump’s unprecedented demand to overturn Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
The tamer reaction came after Reed warned the audience Friday about booing or speaking disapprovingly of any presidential candidate: “If they’re not where they should be, we’re just going to love them and pray them where they should go.”
Not everyone heeded that warning. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who built his 2024 candidacy around criticizing Trump, hung up when he said that the former president is more interested in improving himself than the interests of the country.
A woman near the stage shouted “We love Trump” and others tried to start chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” but Christie managed to finish his speech.
“You can boo all you want but here’s the thing, our faith teaches us that people should be held accountable for what they do,” said Christie, who is a Catholic. “People need to stand up and take responsibility for what they did.”
