Hawley to push GOP officeholders, candidates to sign ‘Declaration for Life’

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is working with Christian groups to push Republican officeholders and candidates to sign a “Declaration for Life” pledge to fight for legislation to restrict abortion.

Hawley announced the pledge after hosting the first Missouri Prayer Breakfast with dozens of pastors in the historic Kennedy Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building.

“This is a declaration for life for life, calling on the country to once again embrace a culture of life and in particular to put a stop to the scourge of the abortion drug known as mifepristone,” Hawley announced after the prayer breakfast.

The declaration was drafted by more than 30 pastors from around the nation and signed by more than 100 pastors from Missouri and 50,000 citizens to coincide with the nation’s 250th anniversary.

“We think that this declaration written by pastors calling on spiritual leaders and everyday Christians across America to stand for life and to confront the scourge of chemical abortion is so critical on this 250th anniversary,” Hawley said.

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, a leading national Christian public policy ministry, and Sean Feucht, a Christian singer and founder of the Let Us Worship movement, joined Hawley in unveiling the pledge.

Perkins, a longtime Christian leader, declared the Republican Party has “lost its voice” on “life” issues.

“Unfortunately the Republican Party has lost its voice on the life issue and in that vacuum there are leaders that are stepping forward like Sen. Hawley calling upon the church, communities and the country to step up on behalf of the unborn,” he said. “I’ve seen the movement on the life issue, we’ve made great progress but there’s been a tremendous setback.

“I think we’ve reached the point where we have to call upon the faith community, the pastors, Christian pastors, to step into this vacuum and speak unequivocally about the sanctity of human life and hold elected officials accountable to a standard. This is a starting point of establishing a standard for what we should be aspiring to as a nation,” he added, thanking Hawley for his leadership.

Perkins pointed out that the Republican National Committee removed its call for a national abortion ban from its official party platform in the summer of 2024.

Hawley introduced legislation in March to ban the use of mifepristone for abortions and to give women the power to sue the drug’s manufacturers. His bill would withdraw the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone for abortion and make distribution and labeling of the drug for ending pregnancies a violation of the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

Hawley’s mifepristone bill has at least seven Republican co-sponsors but hasn’t received much discussion within the Senate GOP conference since he introduced it.

“My observation is that when it comes to elected officials in Congress that there hasn’t been much will to do much of anything to protect the innocent and unborn and I think we’ve got to change that. And one of the things we want to do with this declaration for life is to call on candidates for office in both parties to sign this declaration to say … we support protecting human life in law … and we support putting an end to chemical abortion,” Hawley said.

“I think that we should call on anybody who wants to serve in this body to take that pledge and that commitment,” he said.

Advocates for lower taxation led by Grover Norquist, the president for Americans for Tax Reform, made great progress in the 1990s and early 2000s in pushing Republican candidates to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge to promise not to vote for tax increases.

Hawley and Christian leaders envision the “Declaration for Life” becoming a similar tool to hold Republican officeholders to account on abortion-related votes, such as restricting mifepristone and stopping federal funding of Planned Parenthood, which provides family planning and abortion services.

“We’re just going to put it out there, pastors have drafted it, we have handed it out to all of these pastors, Missouri pastors behind me today, many of whom have already signed it,” he said. “We’ll just put it out there and ask candidates … to support this and commit to this.”

Perkins, who heads one of the biggest Christian political advocacy groups in the country, said that “pro-life groups will circulate this as a standard because the Republican Party platform removed the life provisions in the last platform.”

“That’s where the Republicans lost their voice on the life issue. In that vacuum, this is a very clear statement as Sen. Hawley said. It’s been put together by pastors,” he said. “Our organization, we will be putting it out there. We will help make this a standard for candidates to commit to a pro-life position.”

The four-page declaration states “the defense of human life is the oldest of American causes” and that the right to life heralded in the Declaration of Independence is the “most foundational of all rights.”

The declaration points out that the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, which overturned the national right to an abortion, did not end abortion in America and that more abortions are being performed today because of the widespread availability of mifepristone.

“So long as the abortion drug can turn every mailbox in America into an abortion clinic, state laws alone cannot protect human life. We need a national response,” it states. “As such, we call on Congress to end the scourge of mail-order abortions by banning the abortion drug.”