Though no one connected to the platform committee’s proceedings publicly criticized the former president or threatened to withhold support, some delegates expressed frustration.

By Megan Messerly and Irie Sentner

07/08/2024 06:45 PM EDT

MILWAUKEE — A small but vocal contingent on the right is frustrated with the new Republican Party platform. There isn’t much they can do about it.

Even as anti-abortion groups largely lined up behind former President Donald Trump’s platform on Monday, some prominent and rank-and-file evangelicals criticized the language for backpedaling on the GOP’s longstanding promise to use the federal government to stop abortion.

“The 2024 platform is a decent statement of campaign priorities, but not necessarily the enduring principles of a party,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. “Unfortunately, the process was unbecoming of constitutional conservatives which did not allow the document to be amended or improved.”

Though no one connected to the platform committee’s proceedings in Milwaukee publicly criticized the former president or threatened to withhold support, some delegates expressed frustration at the way the platform was handled. The document — which was whittled down from 66 pages in 2016 to 16 pages this year — was developed behind closed doors and hastily presented to and approved by delegates in just a few hours Monday morning.

The platform language adopted by delegates did, however, mollify many anti-abortion advocates who believe the federal government should play a role in setting abortion policy by gesturing to the 14th Amendment, which conservatives have long argued protects life starting at conception. Six prominent anti-abortion organizations signed onto a letter in which they called the new party platform “a set of common-sense promises that will Make America Great Again” and said that it reflected Trump’s commitment to “protecting life and promoting the family.”

Still, after the platform’s adoption, Perkins worked to gather support for a minority report he and others argued is more representative of where the party has historically been on abortion. Their report, in part, calls for the passage of the Human Life Amendment, which proposes to amend the Constitution to say that life begins at conception and establish legal protections for fetuses that could undo abortion protections in Democratic-controlled states.

“In no season, under no rationale spurred by the exigencies of a political moment, can or should we abandon the high principles that have created and sustained this party,” the report says. “These are issues for the ages and not for any single cycle in our national life.”

It’s unclear whether Perkins and other delegates who opposed the abortion language in the platform Monday have a means to get their minority report heard on the floor of next week’s convention. Perkins said that the report has been submitted to the RNC chair, the co-chair of the platform committee and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Johnson, asked about the party platform, did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the RNC and Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the minority report.

Other evangelical leaders like Brent Leatherwood, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, who had called on the party not to retreat from the abortion issue, said he was disappointed by the platform.

“Now is the time to advocate for a robust vision for life — at all levels of government — not retreat from it,” Leatherwood said. “A moment when the abortion industry has been knocked on its heels is no time to shrink from a full-throated commitment to protecting preborn lives.”

Some delegates to the platform committee also voiced frustrations about Monday’s process.

Gayle Ruzicka, a platform committee member from Utah, said the RNC staff “didn’t allow” a discussion on the language the platform used on abortion.

“I had planned to go up there to try and make an amendment and they said we could make amendments,” she said, adding that she had been on platform committees several times and found it “very unusual.”

“They didn’t even give us a chance to read it before we voted on it,” Ruzicka said. She didn’t know exactly how long they had before voting — staff had taken her watch, phone and laptop — but it was “maybe a couple of hours” filled by speakers.

“I’m very frustrated. I think we were treated very poorly. We spent a lot of money to get here. We were supposed to have the opportunity to study it and read it. We didn’t get even a chance to read it first,” Ruzicka said. “They gave it to us, but we kept waiting to go to our committee and then they didn’t ever do committees.”

Sandye Kading, a platform committee member and member of the RNC from South Dakota, called the meeting “concise” but targeted her criticisms at the process, not Trump.

“The process was definitely abbreviated,” Kading said, adding: “I think it could have been stronger on life issues.”

Natalie Allison contributed to this report.