The Republican National Coalition
for Life (RNC/Life) was founded by Phyllis Schlafly in the fall of 1990
after two groups, Republicans for Choice and National Republican Coalition
for Choice, publicly announced their intention to provoke a floor fight at
the 1992
Republican National Convention in Houston in order to remove the
pro-life plank from the platform.
Throughout
1991 and 1992, the two pro-abortion-choice groups carried on a relentless
attack against the official position of the Republican Party which states in
part that, "the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life
which cannot be infringed." Their campaign enjoyed massive coverage and
support from the media and ample funding from the abortion industry and
their friends in the Republican Party.
After
securing 100,000 Pledges of Support for the platform plank from grassroots
voters across America, and an impressive endorsement list of 3,500
Republican public and Party elected officials, RNC/Life led the successful
effort by pro-life national Delegates to readopt the pro-life plank.
In
1996, at the
Republican National Convention in San Diego, RNC/Life was faced with
the same challenge, this time augmented by the vast financial resources and
political power of pro-abortion, liberal Republican Governors Whitman (NJ),
Weld (MA), Pataki (NY), Rowland (CT) and Wilson (CA). Once again, we
organized and elected pro-life delegates to county, district and state
conventions which resulted in a majority of pro-life Delegates who attended
the National Convention and unanimously adopted the pro-life plank.
The
Republican Party has been the pro-life Party since Roe vs. Wade when,
at the 1976 National Convention a resolution in support of efforts to secure
a human life amendment to the Constitution was adopted.
RNC/Life
will continue to work to protect and defend the Republican Party's
principled commitment to legal protection for all innocent human beings,
from conception until natural death.
In
addition, we will work to hold Republican lawmakers accountable to the
pro-life principles in our platform. It is our desire to see those
principles translated into public policy and law. Further, we encourage
Republican Party officials to enthusiastically support pro-life candidates
and policies consistent with our platform.