The anti-abortion movement is fractured over what it wants from its first post-Roe GOP presidential nominee

Bernie Hayes has spent most Mondays since the overturning of Roe v. Wade meeting with friends outside of an Iowa Planned Parenthood trying to stop abortions one at a time. He huddles monthly with other like-minded activists plotting more wholesale paths to halting the procedure.

Lately, Hayes, an elder at Noelridge Park Church in Cedar Rapids, has observed more dissent among anti-abortion allies who once worked in harmony. Some see the fall of Roe as a one-time chance to ban abortion entirely while others are worried about the political consequences of pushing too hard too quickly.

“Sadly, it becomes divisive to the point where we just get fractured,” Hayes said. “I can only imagine what the division looks like on a national scale.”

Those divisions are spilling out into the 2024 Republican presidential primary, as leading anti-abortion organizations are offering candidates conflicting guidance on an issue that has galvanized the political right for half a century. Recent polling shows Republican voters aren’t providing candidates much more clarity.

Lynda Bell, the president of Florida Right to Life, bristled at the suggestion that Republican candidates must back a federal abortion ban.

“There’s nothing in the Constitution that talks about abortion and this issue should be decided by the states,” she said.

But other leaders of anti-abortion groups want GOP candidates to be unflinching in their support for more hardline policies.

“Anyone in the pro-life movement is looking very carefully at the current candidates that are running for president, and those who are not advocating strongly on this issue are going to be the ones that are not going to get the confidence and get the vote of the pro-life movement,” said Maggie DeWitte, the executive director of the Iowa anti-abortion group Pulse Life Advocates.

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