Tony Perkins says the Republican Party has "lost its voice" on abortion and credits Hawley with filling the vacuum
President of the Family Research Council, speaking at the Declaration for Life unveiling
“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.”
Source and context
Reporting
About this source
Contemporaneous reporting on the September 16 event, naming Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and the Christian musician Sean Feucht as joining Hawley at the unveiling, and recording Hawley's request that candidates in both parties sign the pledge. The page blocks automated retrieval; its full text was obtained through the Firecrawl index on September 18, 2026, and the same quotations appear in the syndicated version carried by Yahoo News.
Before the quotation
Perkins noted that the Republican Party removed its call for a national abortion ban from the official party platform in the summer of 2024.
After the quotation
Perkins said pro-life groups would circulate the declaration "as a standard" because the party platform had dropped its life provisions.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Should Congress ban the abortion pill, mifepristone, as Josh Hawley has proposed?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
The case's fixed reference point is Hawley's proposition that Congress should ban mifepristone by revoking its federal approval. Perkins endorses both the proposition and the campaign to bind candidates to it, and commits his organisation to enforcing it. The closest competing label is condemns, because the sentence is framed as criticism. That loses because its target is the Republican Party's retreat from the issue, not Hawley's proposal, which he praises; classifying on the emotional tone of the criticism rather than its stated target would reverse the label.
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- Josh Hawley
Should Congress ban the abortion pill, mifepristone, as Josh Hawley has proposed?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
More from this case
Read the full case“This Declaration for Life, written by pastors, is calling on everyday Christians across America to stand for life and confront the scourge of chemical abortion.”Read statement
“Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), who faces a competitive reelection race, told Axios he hasn't seen Hawley's bill when asked for his position on it.”Read statement
“No.”Read statement