Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago have approved a party platform that doubles down on support for abortion, IVF, and “gender-affirming health care.”
The platform is an aspirational document drafted and approved by party delegates during election years. It is meant to outline the party’s policy goals for the coming years.
The new platform, which is 91 pages long and mentions abortion nearly three times more than the 2020 platform, was approved in an overwhelming voice vote on the first night of the convention.
Here are some highlights that are especially relevant to Catholics.
Enshrine Roe v. Wade
While the 2020 platform expressed that “every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion,” the 2024 platform goes further by explicitly calling for the enshrinement of abortion into national law by making Roe v. Wade the law of the land.
The plank on “reproductive freedom” blames former President Donald Trump for Roe’s overturn and claims that if elected he would “ban abortion nationwide.”
“President [Joe] Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Democrats are committed to restoring the reproductive rights Trump ripped away,” the platform says. “We will pass national legislation to make Roe the law of the land again.”
This focus on abortion is consistent with the new Democratic presidential nominee Harris’ prioritization of abortion as a central campaign issue.
The platform promises that a Harris-Walz administration would “support access to FDA-approved medication abortion, appoint leaders at the FDA who respect science, and appoint judges who uphold fundamental freedoms.”
Like previous versions of the Democratic platform, the 2024 platform pledges to eliminate the Hyde Amendment, a long-standing measure that bans federal tax dollars from being used for abortion.
This comes after Republicans approved a 2024 platform that softened its stance on abortion by removing a “right to life” plank and a call for a national law protecting unborn life from the platform.
Protect IVF
While the 2020 platform did not mention in vitro fertilization (IVF), the new platform mentions it six times.
IVF is a fertility procedure to conceive a child outside of the sexual act. The Catholic Church holds that IVF is “morally unacceptable” because it separates the marriage act from procreation and establishes “the domination of technology” over human life.
IVF has become a hot topic since a February ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court determined unborn babies conceived through IVF to be human children protected by state law. Since the ruling, many leading Republicans and Democrats have firmly denounced limits on IVF and advocated for expanded IVF protections.
The platform accuses Republicans of “openly attacking” IVF and promises that a Democratic White House “will protect a woman’s right to access IVF.”
Marriage
The only mention of marriage made in the 2024 Democratic platform is in the context of protecting LGBTQ+ “marriage equality in federal law.”
The platform bashes Trump for appointing judges who “oppose same-sex marriage” and promises to pass the Equality Act to “codify protections for LGBTQI+ Americans and their families.”
The Equality Act would recognize sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under civil rights law and forbid discrimination based on those classes.
The U.S. Catholic bishops have opposed the legislation, saying it upholds the redefinition of marriage and frames gender as simply a “social construct.” The bishops have also said it would “punish” religious groups opposed to these beliefs.
‘Gender-affirming care’
The platform accuses Trump of “running on an extreme plan to punish doctors who treat transgender youth and to ban gender-affirming care.”
According to the World Health Organization, gender-affirming care refers to an array of interventions including social, psychological, behavioral, and medical treatments, such as hormonal therapies and surgery.
The platform lauds the Biden-Harris administration’s actions to “protect transgender Americans’ access to health care and coverage, including medically necessary gender-affirming care.”
“Democrats will vigorously oppose state and federal bans on gender-affirming health care and respect the role of parents, families, and doctors — not politicians — in making health care decisions,” the platform states.
Freedom of religion
The platform also includes a plank on “combating hate and protecting freedom of religion,” in which Democrats decry the rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia and pledge to “maintain the separation of church and state.”
The platform makes no mention of Christians but states that Democrats will “advocate for religious freedom across the world” and “continue to honor both religious freedom and other civil rights, not put them at war with one another.”
Immigration
The platform asserts that “America is a nation of immigrants” and states that the next Democratic presidential administration will push for legislation that will “secure the border, reform the asylum system, expand legal immigration; and keep families together by supporting a pathway for long-term undocumented individuals.”
Illegal immigration has soared under the Biden administration. The Washington Post reported that illegal border crossings hit an all-time high in 2022 with 2.2 million crossings. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection there have been nearly 2 million crossings this year, which is double the highest point under the Trump administration.
Differing from the 2020 version, the new Democratic platform includes a section on securing the border. This section claims Democrats will push for additional border patrol agents, immigration judges, asylum officers, and inspection technology to better detect and stop human trafficking and the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. from the southern border.
