Phyllis Schlafly Elected A Delegate

RNC/Life national chairman Phyllis Schlafly was elected a Delegate to the Republican National Convention in San Diego from the 2nd District of Missouri. She was an elected Delegate to six previous Republican National Conventions: 1956, 1964, 1968, 1984, 1988, 1992, and an elected Alternate Delegate to two other Republican National Conventions: 1960 and 1980. She is a past First Vice President of the National Federation of Republican Women and was three times elected president of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women.

Mrs. Schlafly plans to work with Missouri Delegates as well as with the hundreds of pro-life Delegates from other states to ensure the re-adoption of the 1992 pro-life plank and the nomination of a pro-life Vice Presidential running mate. She and RNC/Life director Colleen Parro will be in San Diego beginning on August 3 to monitor the Platform Committee hearings and to welcome invited Delegates, Alternates and friends to the most exciting social event of Convention week, "A Whale of a Party", hosted by RNC/Life at Sea World.

RNC/Life Stands Firm for Strong Pro-Life Plank

On CNN's Inside Politics the day before he left the Senate, Bob Dole reopened the issue of the pro-life plank in the Republican Platform and said that his proposed statement of "tolerance" is "going to be in the abortion plank, not in the preamble."

Dole went on to say that he wants to "make it clear to the people that we are tolerant ... it ought to be right up there, where people can see it" and, he added, "I make that decision. It's not negotiable."

Over the previous weekend, Bob Dole had indicated that he was willing to keep the text of the pro-life plank exactly as it has read for the past three Republican Conventions, while inserting a preamble to the entire platform to recognize that Republicans disagree about many issues including term limits. This would be acceptable because it is a statement of fact.

But any "tolerance" language absolutely must not be abortion-specific because that would weaken or water down the beautiful pro-life plank, which was part of our Platform in 1984, 1988, and 1992. We cannot and must not adopt any language indicating that we are "tolerant" about the killing of unborn babies or that we are retreating from the principled pro-life position that has brought millions of voters to the Republican Party, especially in 1984 and 1994. Without those millions of pro-life voters, Bob Dole would not be Senate Majority Leader and Newt Gingrich would not be Speaker of the House.

By his latest words, Bob Dole has thrown down the gauntlet to the pro-life movement.

We accept the challenge. We will fight to readopt a pro-life platform plank that is unchanged from what our Party has held for the past 12 years. Contrary to Bob Dole's boast, the Platform language will not be "his decision" but a decision made by the Delegates to the Republican National Convention, and the big majority will be pro-life.

Abraham Lincoln said it well: "Important principles may and must be inflexible." (April 11, 1865)

TEXAS - SAN ANTONIO, June 22

A loud, messy floor fight over abortion erupted at the Texas Republican's Convention, and when it was over, Bob Dole supporters had only narrowly prevailed in preserving Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson's seat as delegate to the party's National Convention in August. [Senator Hutchinson supports legal abortion until viability and has called for the removal or weakening of the Pro-Life plank in the Republican National Platform.] The anti-abortion forces did succeed in their drive to deny delegate slots to dozens of other Texans who had been nominated by the Dole campaign. In all, anti-abortion leaders claimed to have wrested at least 70 of the 90 open delegate slots from the Dole campaign. (New York Times, 6/23/96)

In addition, Texas Republican's adopted a pro-life platform plank that mirrors the national platform.

Texas Governor George W. Bush, who will preside over the Republican National Convention as temporary co-chairman, said he believes the GOP should retain a platform plank calling for a constitutional ban on abortion. "It was a winning platform in 1988. I don't think it determined the outcome of the 1992 election. I think it's important to keep it in." (Associated Press, 5/2/96)

VIRGINIA

RNC/Life board member Morton Blackwell was re-elected to his third four-year term as Republican National Committeeman at the Virginia Republican Convention in a hot contest. A strong pro-life advocate, Morton walked away with 2/3rds of the state GOP convention vote. Morton is president of the Leadership Institute and executive director of the Council for National Policy.

IOWA

A move by some Republican Governors to keep anti-abortion language out of the GOP platform this election year is bound to fail, Governor Terry Branstad said. "I think it's futile. The fact that the Republican Party has taken a stand on principle has attracted literally hundreds of thousands of new people to the party." (Des Moines Register, 5/7/96) Iowa will be sending a solidly pro-life delegation to the Republican National Convention.

WASHINGTON

"The head of the Washington state Republican Party (Ken Eikenberry), who wouldn't allow presidential candidate Pat Buchanan to speak at the state convention, was rejected by party members as a delegate to the national GOP convention." (Dallas Morning News, 6/3/96)

WISCONSIN

Mary Matuska, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin responded to Dole's and Governor Tommy Thompson's call for platform language "tolerating" pro-abortion views in an opinion editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal on 6/12/96. Among her remarks was this fine paragraph: "Dole and Thompson just don't get it. If either of these men really believed that every abortion violently kills a baby and wounds a mother, they wouldn't be on their "tolerance" crusade. Instead they'd be standing with those Republicans who cherish the sanctity of human life, demanding that the most basic of all human rights - the right to life - be preserved at all times."