The Caving of the GOP: What Now?

*This is an AI generated transcript, and may contain errors*

Mark Harrington (00:00):

The Republican National Committee has gutted the pro-life platform as Donald Trump’s VP sweepstakes. Continue

(00:20):

The well. Hello everybody. Mark Harrington here. You can go to my website MarkHarrington.org to find out more about the program, the podcast here. We’re on all the popular podcasting platforms. If you do listen or watch the show, please share it and leave a review so others might be inclined to watch or listen to it as well. We’re talking about the Republican National Committee this week who has gutted the pro-life plank. This happened on Monday. It’s big news. There was rumblings of this likely going to happen last week and this isn’t good, right? But I want to tell people not to freak out too much here, I’m going to give you some hope. But before we talk about that part of it, we need to talk about what the Republican National Committee has done at the direction of the nominee for the Republican Party. That is Donald Trump. Historically, the Republican National Committee has kept a pro-life plank in the party platform, and this has been the case for decades going all the way back to the 1980s.

(01:36):

The Republican party always had a pro-life plank. It hasn’t really changed a whole lot over the years, but this year is different. And that’s not a good thing because they did water it down. There’s no question about it. So what is the difference? What is the difference? That’s what we need to know. So let me read it to you, and if you’re watching, you can read it as well. And it’s basically, it says this, we proudly stand for families in life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life, liberty, life or liberty without due process. And that the states are therefore free to pass laws protecting those rights after 51 years because of us. I guess really it’s because of Donald Trump, but because of us, that power has been given to the states and to a vote of the people.

(02:35):

We’ll oppose late term abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control and IVF, and then they have in fertility treatments. So what’s different this time around? The biggest thing is this, that for the first time the Republican Party has removed a call to ban abortion at the federal level that has been in as far as I can understand, in every party platform in the modern era, even since the 1980s. And so what does that mean? That means that the Republican party’s no longer calling for abortion to be banned on a federal level. Why is that important? Why does that matter? Well, it matters because the federal government does have a role and the Republican Party should call for the federal government to ban abortion. Now, when it says here that we believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process, and that the states are therefore free to pass laws protecting those rights, here’s the problem.

(03:55):

It’s not just the states that are free to pass laws protecting those rights. The federal government through the Congress can do it as well. And that’s the problem because the nominee for the Republican Party is Donald Trump. And Donald Trump, as you well know, has refused to call for a federal ban on abortion even at 15 weeks. And he’s saying, oh, it’s a state’s rights issue and the federal government doesn’t have a role in all of this. That’s not true. The 14th Amendment just doesn’t apply to states. It applies to the Congress too. It applies to all 50 states. And therefore the Congress of the United States can pass laws to protect those rights that are enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees that no person committing, denied life or liberty without due process. Now, our US Supreme Court has not ruled or at least recognized that the 14th Amendment protects the unborn as a person.

(05:10):

They fell short of that in the Dobbs decision. They just said that there is no mention to abortion in the Constitution and that that issue should be left up to the states to decide. Now, Clarence Thomas is the only one that said that the 14th Amendment protects the unborn and therefore he believes that the Constitution does do that. Therefore, I think, and the Republican party should be calling for a federal ban on abortion and it should be from conception, but they won’t even do it for a 15 week ban. And this is just a way of sidestepping the issue because Donald Trump thinks that abortion is a liability or the pro-life position is a liability for him if he’s running for president for all the down ballot candidates. I think he’s wrong on that, but it’s a calculation he’s made and unfortunately they’ve gutted that portion of the pro-life plank to the Republican platform.

(06:11):

The other thing is that they only call for opposition to late term abortion. That’s it. That’s all. No other abortions including pill abortions, which now account for 63% of all abortions. So now the Republican party is only opposed to late term abortion. This is a problem ostensibly, the Republican party has become a pro-choice party under Donald Trump, and that’s an issue. And then finally, they include protections for IVF. This is the first time that has ever appeared in the party platform as part of the pro-life plank. Now we understand that IVF is immoral and here’s why. Because we’re treating in IVF, we’re creating human embryos as commodities like children are commodities. They’re used like any other commodity, not like human beings. And therefore the process of creating them and then disposing of them, which by the way, most children that are conceived or created by in vitro fertilization are discarded, meaning they’re killed, which is the reason why we would believe it’s immoral.

(07:27):

Most of those that are created by IVF are actually killed and those who are implanted in a woman’s uterus through a process of selective abortion or selective reduction they call it, are also killed. So generally what happens in IVF is that the mother that’s carrying the babies, the embryos, they implant several of them generally more than what the mother would rather have. They might take twins or whatever, or one or two, but sometimes they’ll implant up to eight or 12 or 10 or what have you, and they’ll selectively reduce the number of embryos so that the mother doesn’t birth more than one or two of them. Generally that’s abortion. So selective abortion is part of the process of IVF. So we are opposed to that. The pro-life movement has been opposed to it, and the Republican party that is Republican candidates historically have as well.

(08:33):

So this is why pro-lifers cannot get behind this platform because it only bans or calls for opposition to late term abortion. It does not talk about any federal remedy or role in the abortion issue and only leaves the 14th amendment up to the states to decide, which again, is not appropriate. So this is why we would be against it, and this is why this is a bad move now, and here’s why they’re doing it, because the nominee for the party is Donald Trump, and this is his position. Now, what I’d like to do is I’m going to share a couple of clips from two of the candidates, if you will, who are running for or who are at least being considered for vice President for Donald Trump. One is Mark ar Rubio, of course, who is a US senator from Florida, and he’s one of the ones that are, that Donald Trump is considering to be his vice president. And after the pro-life plank was removed from the Republican party platform, he was asked on CNN what his position was on the platform, which by the way, historically he has supported. Go ahead and play that clip

Video (09:55):

About the potential to change the platform. Do you support changing the official party platform to Trump’s position that it should be a state issue?

(10:07):

Well, I think our platform has to reflect our nominee and our nominees position actually happens to be one grounded in reality. The reality of it is the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. And what that basically means is that now it’s not states, it’s voters at individual states who will get to decide how and to what level they want to restrict abortion, if at all. Some states will have restrictions, some states will not. And so I hope that our platform will reflect our nominee. I also,

Mark Harrington (10:33):

All right, you can stop it there. Here’s the problem with this position, as he says either the unborn or human or they’re not, and either abortion is murder or it’s not. This is not meant to be put up to popular vote. He talks about the voters in the states are now going to decide who lives and who dies. That’s not something that the voters should have any say in the US Constitution protects the unborn in the 14th amendment, that word person includes the unborn. It historically did even before the constitution was written in state constitutions. And it’s been interpreted over the years until 1973 with Roe v. Wade to include the unborn. So Marco Rubio has flip flopped on this, and now he’s just saying it needs to reflect the positions of the nominee. Well, up until this case, up until this time, the nominee supported the pro-life plank. Donald Trump does not. So now we’re saying, well, we’re just going to leave it to the states to decide. Marco Rubio was a strong pro-life advocate prior to this, and now he is caved along with others, including our senator here in the state of Ohio, JD Vance, who is also on the short list to be Donald Trump’s VP pick. So go ahead and play this clip. He’s asked about the abortion pill. Go ahead.

Video (12:04):

But just to be clear, you support Miryam being accessible. Yes, Kristen, I do.

Mark Harrington (12:12):

But again, stop. This is nauseating. This is so frustrating. JD Vance has been a strong pro-life advocate. Historically, he ran on a pro-life position in the state of Ohio as US Senator and won, and now all of a sudden he’s changed and he says Mione, which by the way is the abortion pill the first of two that would be taken in order to cause a chemical abortion. Now he supports it all of a sudden, which accounts for six out of 10 abortions. So all of a sudden because Donald Trump says he’s changed his position on abortion and now the Republican party has to fall in line with him, this is a tragedy. Friends, what happened to having some spine? Now, if you’re running for VP as these two individuals are, Marco Rubio and JD Vance, I understand the pressure is there to follow the nominee for the president, and if they’re going to be considered for vice president, they’re going to have to toe the line.

(13:18):

And so what they did for political expediency and for them to hopefully get the VP position, they caved, which shows you they didn’t have any strong convictions about the pro-life position, their pro-life position before this, and they just threw the babies under the bus. Now, if I were them, I would say I don’t agree with the current newly revised pro-life plank, but I do support Donald Trump for president. You can do both. You don’t have to agree with ’em on everything. But I’m afraid if they were to do that, they would not be considered for the vice presidency on the Republican ticket. So that’s where we are friends. The pro-life plank has been gutted. The Republican Party for now has become a pro-choice party for the most part, and the nominee for the party is the one that has made that happen because people say that we have that the party platform should reflect the positions of the nominee.

(14:24):

And the problem with the platform again is that it removed the call for a federal ban on abortion that only leaves the 14th amendment up to the states where it should be actually federal. And also it just opposes late term abortion alone, not any others. And it supports access to birth control. And IVF and IVF, as I said, is, so that’s the problem with this Friends, it’s going to be a tough one for a lot of pro-lifers to vote for Donald Trump this time around. I could tell you this, I didn’t see this coming. Be honest with you. I did not think that they were going to gut the party platform. I figured that Donald Trump’s position was going to stand alone and they would adopt the historic platform at the RNC this year, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Unfortunately, the only hope we have is this Donald Trump will be a La Duck president once he takes the oath of office.

(15:27):

If he wins, that means he only has four years, and in two years there’s going to be a midterm election, and in two years we start the campaign for 2028, and those candidates, which include hopefully Ron DeSantis and others who are social conservatives that believe in the pro-life position and are against abortion will once again hopefully be at the front of the line and Donald Trump will be in the rear view mirror when it comes to the Republican party. So let’s not give up on things, friends, let’s keep going. It’s not over. We can restore the plank to the Republican platform and we can put in a president in 2028 who is a true blue social conservative who is pro-life and believes in the Republican platform. So the question is what can you do about it now that the platform has been gutted and that the plank has been taken out for all intents and purposes, and the Republican party has become pro-choice, at least in the era of Donald Trump?

(16:33):

Well, here’s what you can do about it. Continue to speak out. Continue to speak out, raise your voice and vote friends vote. What we’re going to be doing about it is because we’re not going to give up. We’re not giving up on the Republican party, we’re not giving up on Donald Trump. We’re going to hold him accountable. First thing we’re going to be doing is flying a giant airplane tow banner or billboard over Milwaukee and the convention center during the Republican National Convention starting Monday. What it will say is this. It says, vote to anti-abortion on one side. And if you’re watching, you can see this on the screen and it will have a picture of a 15 week abortion on the left side of the billboard. This billboard is 50 foot by 100 foot. Think of that. It’s a gigantic billboard that’s going to be flying over the city of Milwaukee during the Republican National Convention next week because we need to remind the Republican Party and the delegates and Donald Trump and all the other candidates that we are going to hold them accountable, and we are going to call for them to restore the pro-life plank to the Republican platform.

(17:54):

So that’s what we’re doing. Friends, if you want to support that, you can go to created equal.org/donate. That’s created equal.org/donate.

(18:06):

Well, friends, last program I had as my guest, Abby Johnson, and we were talking about abortion victim photography, which we often do here on the program and the effectiveness of that. I wanted to revisit that a little bit because there’s a lot of talk out there about this, what works, what doesn’t. Of course, the pro-abortion, people don’t want us to show real imagery that is real pictures of aborted babies video and photos. Why? Because they know it’s devastating to their case. And so what they do is they put these things on social media talking about how our pictures are fake or that we use illustrations or cartoons or what have you in order to try to dehumanize the preborn because they know if someone sees a picture of a baby in utero or they see an abortion, that they’re less likely to support it, period.

(19:02):

They know that and we know that. So there’s been a full scale effort from the pro-abortion side to hide the truth about this. And so I saw this clip on TikTok and I wanted to go ahead and play it and respond to it because this argument was made about a year or two ago. I forget where this organization called the Maya Network put out. so-called Images of abortion that they found and said that this is what it looks like. We dealt with it back then. I’m going to deal with it again because this is something that’s a common refrain from the pro-abortion people to say, this is what a baby looks like in utero, and of course it’s not. So we’re going to go ahead and play this clip again. This person’s dressed up in clinical garb like a nurse or something. I don’t know if she is or not, but she goes through and explains that a lot of the images that pro-lifers put out there are illustrations. So go ahead and play this clip.

Video (20:08):

The Pro-life movement is very skilled at pulling at your heartstring. They show you pictures of what an embryo looks like at 6, 8, 10 weeks and in their pictures, you can clearly see what looks like a fully formed baby with all of their body parts. And that’s why a lot of pro-lifers think that pro-choice are evil baby killers stop. But did you ever

Mark Harrington (20:26):

Notice that? Well, that is why, because you are evil baby killers. It’s not because of us. It’s just because you are. And the pictures, when we show ’em, demonstrate what you are. Go ahead.

Video (20:42):

All of these pictures are illustrations. None of them look like actual medical photos from a pathology lab. It’s all

Mark Harrington (20:49):

Stop there. They say they’re not actual photos. Well wrong. She obviously has not been to create equals website and others who show abortion, victim photography, real pictures and video as well as prenatal images. So she’s wrong there. Go ahead.

Video (21:08):

And it’s meant to make you feel those emotions. Mind,

Mark Harrington (21:11):

Network, stop there too. It’s not made to make you feel that way. You just will feel that way. When somebody sees a picture of a person who’s been dismembered or decapitated or disempowered, it’s going to make them feel a particular way. It’s either going to make ’em feel guilty if they’ve done it or they’re complicit or it’s going to make them feel sick to their stomach. Either way, the pictures do do that. We don’t do it. Don’t. The images do. Go ahead.

Video (21:46):

Those emotions. The Maya network is a group of physicians who have started a project called The Issue of Tissue, and they’ve posted pictures of what this tissue actually looks like. I’m going to show you those pictures, but before I do, I want you to keep in mind that 95% of all abortions occur in the first trimester that

Mark Harrington (22:03):

This is what products of. That’s not true either. It’s about 89%. She’s off a little bit on that. About seven, eight, 9%, seven 8% are in the second trimester, and 2% or so are in the third trimester. Go ahead.

Video (22:18):

Products of conception removed at 5, 6, 7, and

Mark Harrington (22:22):

There you go. There’s a buzzword for you. Go ahead.

Video (22:25):

Really look like there is no visible embryo until nine weeks. It is nothing more than a gestational set containing tissues that have the potential to form an embryo.

Mark Harrington (22:35):

All stop there. Here’s the deal, this Maya network admits and Mr. Producer, if you would pop up our blog, we wrote on this a while back about these images that are being displayed or put online by the Maya network, which is this pro-abortion group. And in the article by the Guardian, this is a British publication or website. The Maya network admits that they stage these pictures. Well, you can tell there’s a ruler there. There’s a Petri dish. There’s nothing wrong with staging the photo per se, but when you manipulate the images to have a particular outcome or at least what you want people to think they are, that’s different. And in fact, in the article in the Guardian, the Maya network says that they rinsed off the blood of the So-called pregnancy tissue. So they removed the, because there was some, they removed the menstrual lining and they only left the gestational lining.

(23:58):

In other words, the embryos weren’t even in the photos. So they sanitized these to make them look like they were just common tissue rather than what they really are, which is a baby who’s been killed by abortion. But that said, let’s just say they do look that way. Why does that matter? So they don’t look like us born people. Well, obviously a preborn child early in pregnancy and even in the second trim is not going to look like you and I. It’s not going to look like a newborn either. They’re just not a reason to discriminate against them. It’s only because they’re younger. This is discrimination based on age. It’s ageism to think that somehow an unborn child in utero needs to somehow look like us just because they don’t. We’re going to discriminate against them. They have no control over that. Again, this is just ageism because they appear differently. They’re a different size, a level development, degree of dependency, and they’re in their environment of their mother. That’s all. That’s all this is that even if the photos were accurate, even if this was accurate, it wouldn’t change a thing. Go ahead and play the rest of the clip

Video (25:26):

A embryo. This is what you see, these pro-life movements magnify the images thousands of times pro and add details that are not there. The heartbeat bill that you’ve heard so much about that bill eliminates abortion at six weeks. The flickering that you see that people want to

Mark Harrington (25:42):

Refer stop there. A couple of things real quick. First, they show some pictures of preborn children, and some of these are animated photos, okay? They’re they’re illustrations, if you will. I’m not a big fan of those. In fact, I think there’s a problem and she may be pointed it out, and that is pro-Lifers should use real photos of preborn children and real photos of aborted children. Now, I know live action and choice for two and others create these illustrations using cartoons and what have you. That’s fine. But if that’s all we’re going to use, we’re going to come up against this kind of an accusation, and that is that we don’t have real images in real video. Of course we do. And I submit to you that the pro-life movement shouldn’t be using artist renditions illustrations, cartoons, and those types of things, diagrams as much as they should be using real photographs and video, which we have lots of it, and we should be using it. So I think our argument is somewhat accurate here. Criticism of the pro-life movement. We should be, should not be using illustrations, we should be using actual images. Pictures of the unborn. Go ahead and continue on.

Video (27:08):

The flickering that you see that people want to refer to as a heartbeat is again a clump of cells with electrical activity.

Mark Harrington (27:15):

It’s nice. The heartbeat starts at 21 days. It can be measured on a EEG, an electroencephalogram at 21 days. A heartbeat can be detected actually around six weeks. So it’s not just a flicker. This is a baby’s whose heart is beating really early in pregnancy. Go ahead and continue on.

Video (27:42):

It is not a formed heart inside of a tiny baby. Not true. This is the tissue removed at eight weeks, still no visible embryo. If you Google an eight it embryo, this is what you see. This is actual aborted products of conception. At nine weeks. 85% of all abortions occur before

Mark Harrington (27:58):

Nine weeks. Why can’t you just say aborted baby? Because that’s what it is. Go ahead

Video (28:02):

Faulting these people for falling for it. Obviously when you see these pictures, it does pull at your heartstrings. These pro-life movements that post pictures like this on the internet are not being honest with you. The pro-choice will absolutely support your right not to have an abortion. They’re just asking that you not take away their rights by claiming that this is a life.

Mark Harrington (28:22):

It’s funny, she claims that the pro-life movement is lying to you by showing these images. Well, I can tell you this. The pictures and the images we show are real, and we’ve had numerous times. I can’t count as the amount of times that people have come up and said they’re fake. They’re made up. And I just asked ’em, well, can you produce a real aborted baby for me or a picture of an aborted baby? And of course, none of them can. And if they went on the internet and Googled aborted baby photos, guess what? Created equals are going to come up because they’re real. And we got hundreds of them, and we have hundreds of hours of video of abortion too. So we’re not lying to anybody. They are because they doctored these images. They rinse the blood off, they remove the menstrual tissue and the embryo, and they just had the gestational sack.

(29:19):

So this is propaganda from the other side. One thing we can learn though, friends, is the pro-life movements. As she says, the pro-life movements, we should use accurate photos. We should use real pictures and video and not illustrations. That just to me, doesn’t get the job done and leaves us open to this criticism that what we use is fake. Now, you would think that the pro-abortion people would show actual imagery, but they don’t. If you go to Planned Parenthood’s website, they do exactly what this woman’s accusing us of doing, and that is using what animation to depict abortion. All right, so what I want to do, this is on Planned Parenthood’s national website. If you want to find out what abortion is, supposedly this is the video you’d watch. So I’m going to go ahead and play a clip of this. And again, this is doing exactly what she says they don’t do, but we do. Go ahead.

Video (30:17):

Their healthcare provider empties your uterus using gentle suction and sometimes other medical tools. For most people, an in-clinic, abortion feels like strong period cramps, but everyone’s experience is different.

Mark Harrington (30:29):

Go ahead and stop there. They empty the uterus. Is that all they do? No. They insert a high powered vacuum catheter that sucks the baby into a jar on a table. They don’t just empty the uterus and it says gentle suction. If you ever witness anybody telling their testimony of their abortion, they won’t say it was gentle. It was anything but gentle to kill that baby. So Planned Parenthood’s lying. They’re using animation just like what she’s accusing the pro-life movement of doing. Instead of using real imagery, of course, they’re not going to do that because they knew that if they did, that would be devastating to their case. To keep abortion legal, just to make the point, create equal has hundreds of hours of video, and we use it on our jumbotron. We have ’em posted on our websites. We take them to college and high school campuses. We don’t use illustrations. We don’t use animation. We use the real thing because we don’t want to have people say that what we do, they’re fake. They’re made up. They aren’t real. This is what abortion looks like. Go ahead and play this clip. This is the video that we often use on our jumbotron at the March for Life and at college and high school campuses. Go ahead.

(32:08):

Now, for those who are not watching, this is first and second trimester aborted babies where the babies have been tortured to death. Decapitated, disempowered, arms, legs, hands, feet, head.

(32:46):

All right, you can stop it there, friends. If you want to know what abortions really look like, go to created equal.org. We have this video available to you. We also have it on our YouTube page, and the Mayan network is wrong. The pro-life movement does not just use animated pictures of preborn children or aborted children, created equal in others around the nation, use real imagery, real pictures, and real video, and all you have to do is go to our website to verify that. But of course, they need to lie about it because if they told the truth, their argument to keep abortion, legal would be devastated. It would be devastated. So friends, to wrap it up today, I want to just extort you to support us because we will be flying our tow banner at the Republican National Convention this week that says, vote anti-abortion with an aborted baby on the 50 by 100 foot banner. We have not given up on the Republican Party. We need to take it back, and we need to prepare for the next election if we don’t get it restored this week, and restore a social conservatism, which includes a true pro-life plank to the Republican Party platform. So we’ll see you next time. God bless you. God bless America, and remember America to bless God.

Outro (34:20):

You’ve been listening to Mark Harrington, your radio activist. For more information on how to make a difference for the cause of life, liberty and justice, go to created equal.org.org. To follow mark, go to Mark Harrington show.com. Be sure to tune in next time for your marching orders in the Culture war.