A Bound4Life activist writes "life" on tape that was later placed on anti-abortion protesters at a Priests for Life rally outside the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington in 2014. | M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Republicans building stronger anti-abortion plank in platform Committees meeting in Cleveland before next week's convention have given preliminary approval of the Planned Parenthood condemnation, according to attendees.

Republicans are considering strengthening the already strict anti-abortion language in their party platform by condemning Planned Parenthood and calling for Supreme Court justices who will reverse decisions in favor of abortion rights.

Platform committees that are meeting in Cleveland before next week's Republican National Convention have given preliminary approval of the Planned Parenthood condemnation, according to attendees.


The full platform committee plans to consider that language later this week, as well as amendments in support of legislative prohibitions on the "the use of body parts from aborted fetuses in research" and opposition to the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike a Texas anti-abortion law.

There had been some tensions between anti-abortion groups and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump until he gathered enough delegates to clinch the nomination and issued specific anti-abortion positions that eased them.

Trump has promised to appoint anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court and has said that he would support legislation to defund Planned Parenthood and enact a ban on abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Groups that oppose abortion said they support the new language under consideration.

“The life language that came out the constitution subcommittee is even stronger than the 2012 language,” said Billy Valentine, director of government affairs at the Susan B. Anthony List. "It very well may be the strongest pro-life platform yet.”

The platform is expected to call for Supreme Court vacancies to be filled by “committed judicial conservatives, like the late Justice Antonin Scalia, so that the Court can begin to reverse the long line of liberal decisions — from Roe to Obergefell to the Obamacare cases.”

The existing Republican platform has consistently called for a “human life” amendment to the constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to “unborn children.”

Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said the new language is just the latest from a party that has devoted time to blocking access to health care.

"Donald Trump even said he would shut down the government in order to prevent patients from getting cancer screenings and birth control, and boasted he is the 'best chance' to overturn Roe V. Wade," she said. "The Republican Party leadership is once again showing that they will stop at nothing -- no matter how many women's lives they put in danger, no matter how much violent rhetoric they embrace, and no matter how much the public disagrees with them -- to prevent women from accessing critical reproductive health care like cancer screenings and STD tests."

