Texans need to understand what happened at the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) Convention in June because it could make a big difference for babies during the 2027 legislative session.
At the convention, the Pro-Life establishment showed up to try to weaken the RPT platform language on abortion. But the delegates rejected their attempts, strengthened the language instead, and voted to make Protect Life one of the RPT's eight official legislative priorities going into 2027.
That’s not a symbolic win.
It is a mandate that we should use.
Don’t get me wrong, the most important reason to prioritize equal protection has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with obeying God’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Preborn babies are our neighbors, and God’s priorities are always the most important.
But it’s still great news that Texas Republicans affirmed their support of equal protection for preborn children and made it a top legislative priority for the 2027 session. 
This grassroots mandate adds even more weight to our call to abolish abortion now, instead of twenty or fifty or one hundred years from now.
Praise God that He gave abolitionists success at the RPT Convention, but the fight doesn’t stop there.
ACTION ALERT:
Here is what you can do today to help us build momentum for 2027:
- Introduce yourself to your SREC committeeman and committeewoman. Urge them to support the Protect Life Legislative Priority, including the equal protection bill that State Representative Brent Money will introduce next session. Find your SREC members here (you will need to know your state senate district to find the right names).
- Introduce yourself to your State Representative and State Senator. Contact them by email or phone. Tell them you want to discuss the Protect Life Legislative Priority and ask them to co-sponsor Brent Money's equal protection bill. Find your legislators here.
Neither of these takes long and they both lay important groundwork now for progress in 2027.
Reminder: Here’s what happened at the convention
In June, delegates met to set the RPT platform and legislative priorities for the next two years, and abortion abolition got a lot of attention.
The Pro-Life lobby group Texas Alliance for Life, led by Executive Director Amy O'Donnell, pushed hard to soften the platform's language on abortion.
Committee members rejected every attempt.
Instead, they made the platform stronger.
Plank 107, on education about preborn children, now includes language grounded in the image of God and the sixth commandment. Plank 156 was strengthened when committee members voted without objection to strike language that would have granted mothers immunity for selling fetal remains. Plank 218, the core abolition language, stood strong despite Texas Alliance for Life's opposition.
Once these planks were defended and strengthened in committee, abolitionists continued to fight for them on the floor of the convention.
Texas Alliance for Life brought amendments that would have weakened the platform to the convention floor. They moved to strike the equal protection and criminalization language outright. Praise God, the Delegates rejected that motion overwhelmingly. A second motion to strike language on IVF also failed.
AATX President Bradley Pierce, board member Wesley Thomas, State Representative Brent Money, and many other abolitionists, helped push for a stronger platform and defend against the attempts to weaken it.
After scores of abolitionists showed up to fight for equal protection at the convention, Texas Republicans adopted the strongest legislative priority language the RPT has ever had.
And the Protect Life priority was voted one of the top legislative priorities for Texas Republicans in the 2027 session.
That is good news for the more than 30,000 preborn children who are still legally murdered by abortion in Texas every year.
How an RPT Legislative Priority helps us
Platform planks and statements about priorities do not pass laws on their own, but here’s how they help abolitionists going into the 2027 legislative session.
Support of Party resources
For the RPT, a Legislative Priority means the Chairwoman and the Executive Committee are expected to use Party resources to support bills that fulfill the priority.
Depending on what committee members decide to do with it, that can look like:
- Discussion during State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) meetings
- Emails to legislators
- Scheduling lobby days
Your SREC committeeman and committeewoman have real leverage here, if they choose to use it. And you can encourage them to do so.
Conversations with elected officials
For those of us who are not committee members or legislators, the Protect Life priority is now a help to us as we talk to those who are.
We can now hold legislators to a standard their own Party's delegates set at Convention. When we call a legislator's office, send an email, or sit across the table in a meeting, we have the weight of grassroots Republicans behind us. We are urging them to follow through on the mandate grassroots Republican delegates gave them when they voted on legislative priorities for the next session. That mandate matters.
This is what it means to be a Republican in Texas
The RPT delegates have made it clear what Texas Republicans should stand for: equal protection of the laws for all babies in Texas from the moment of fertilization.
Is a Texas legislator truly Republican if he will not support a bill of equal protection that fulfills the Protect Life legislative priority?
That’s a question worth asking all Texas lawmakers.
Will legislators uphold RPT priorities in 2027?
A legislative priority is a call to action.
The 2027 session is an opportunity to find out which Texas Republicans will follow that call.
Remember to take action on the two items above
to help us lay important groundwork for progress in the 2027 session.