Their Abortion Stand Still Hurts Democrats
by Rachel MacNair
Yesteryear
We’ve long been making the point that Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot with having not merely a pro-abortion stand but an aggressive stand, tolerating no dissent.
Here are illustrative quotations:
A Couple of Decades Ago:
Mark Shields
Dems doing worst to lose “Catholic vote”, Mark Shields Creators Syndicate, July 22, 2002
In a deliberate act of political bigotry, the Democratic National Committee is daily telling Catholic voters to get lost. Do you think I exaggerate? Then go to the Democratic National Committee website . . .
There is under “Catholic” only one Democratic Party-endorsed site to visit: the absolutely unflinching champions of abortion on demand, “Catholics for a Free Choice.” How offensive is this? Well, what would be the reaction if the only DNC-recommended site under Jewish-American . . . was “Jews for Jesus?” Or if Native Americans were directed to the “Little Beaver” and Tonto library?
Beyond the insensitivity is the ignorance. Does anybody at Democratic Party headquarters know that polling, for the past half century, has consistently shown that Catholics – on issues from health care to workers’ rights to the environment and civil rights – are consistently more liberal than are Protestants?
Jim Wallis
Politically Homeless, Sojourners, Jan 4, 2018
Moral issues of intrinsic concern to the faith community are often disregarded or disrespected by Democratic Party orthodoxy, which often takes extreme or overly strident views on issues like abortion. Many of us in the faith community regard abortion as a moral issue and part of a consistent ethic of life and seamless garment of concern for the many threats to human life and dignity. . . we find the Democrats even reluctant to make a commitment to reducing abortion by supporting women with health care, nutrition, and social services. Many in Democratic leadership don’t seem to want to talk about or even being willing to use the word “reduction” as a positive term in relation to abortion . . . While a younger generation in the faith community is indeed more welcoming of LGBTQ people than their parents have been, they are not so welcoming of abortion as the Democratic elites seem to be, and the Democratic Party needs to figure that out.
During Trump’s first term:
David Brooks
The Abortion Memo, The New York Times, February 1, 2018
To: Democratic Party Leaders
From: Imaginary Democratic Consultant
Re: Late-Term Abortions
Dear Democratic Leaders,
Last week I watched as our senators voted down the Republican bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks. Our people hung together. Only three Democrats voted with the other side. Yet as I was watching I kept wondering: How much is our position on late-term abortions hurting us? How many progressive priorities are we giving up just so we can have our way on this one? . . .
Millions of Americans became single-issue voters. They consider the killing of the unborn the great moral issue of our time. Without pro-life voters, Ronald Reagan never would have been elected. Without single-issue voters who wanted pro-life judges, there would never have been a President Donald Trump. I understand that our donors (though not necessarily our voters) want to preserve a woman’s right to choose through all nine months of her pregnancy. But do we want late-term abortion so much that we are willing to tolerate President Trump? Do we want it so much that we give up our chance at congressional majorities? Do we want it so much that we see our agendas on poverty, immigration, income equality and racial justice thwarted and defeated?
Michael Wear
Democrats Shouldn’t Be So Certain About Abortion, The New York Times, July 14, 2019, pg. SR4
Mr. Wear served as part of President Barack Obama’s faith-based initiative and on both of his presidential campaigns. He’s not a consistent-lifer but makes some interesting points.
Democrats used to express great offense if Republicans described them as the party of “abortion on demand.” Now, Democratic candidates seem happy to leave the impression that their party is just that, often justifying their position by suggesting it’s a direct result of listening to women, communities of color and those with low incomes. Here’s the problem: They don’t speak for these communities when they appear to support abortion on demand. We know that 73 percent of women believe abortion should be restricted to at least the first three months (with a large percentage of those women supporting even greater restrictions). According to a June Morning Consult/Politico poll, 42 percent of Hispanics support Hyde (28 percent oppose), as well as 36 percent of African-Americans (37 percent oppose) and 46 percent of Americans with an income under $50,000 (31 percent oppose).
But Now, Post-Dobbs
Some pundits thought abortion was a winning issue, and strategists believed having a pro-abortion measure on the ballot would bring out more Democratic voters. In 2024, that strategy clearly failed – some states passed the measures and yet still went for Trump. And while some of the measures succeeded, not enough did to recommend this as a future strategy. See the rundown of 2024 measures and the state constitution strategy from our project website, Peace and Life Referendums.
I live in Missouri, one of the states with a “right to abortion” amendment that passed with just 51.2% of the vote. So I know what the pro-amendment ads said: “Missouri’s abortion ban went too far.” They didn’t try to make the case for the amendment, which went to the opposite extreme. And rumors were flying about the ban being far more extreme than it actually was.
But we’ve known for all these decades about public opinion on abortion: the two extremes each have a fraction of the population. Around half or so are somewhere in the middle. From Gallup:
They divided positions into three groups, but a continuum better fits the situation. That 50% includes the only exception being their understanding of abortion being necessary to save the life of the mother, and then another portion will be exceptions for rape and incest only. Along the continuum will be people that say first trimester only, plus other ideas.
Note that the category of “legal under any” is only about a third of the population. And even some of them, if you question them further, may balk at sex selection.
Such questions as taxpayer funding of abortion, informed consent, and parental involvement aren’t included. So if that third includes many with opinions on those that are different from the Democratic rhetoric, they don’t even have that third.
No matter how Democratic politicians may fool themselves into thinking the public is with them when they observe anything less than full opposition to abortion, that doesn’t translate to full support for abortion either.
Full support, the kind where we have the candidate actually visiting an abortion facility, where abortion pills are offered by a mobile van outside the Democratic convention, where the pro-abortion rhetoric is extreme and constant – that fits in with an elitist image.
Inasmuch as a perception of elitism was one of the Democrats’ election problems, their abortion rhetoric added to that image.
As put in the non-partisan publication,The Hill:
Among Kamala Harris’ many strategic blunders, abortion may be her greatest. In her overemphasis of and overextension on this issue, Harris exhibited the same elitism and hubris that doomed her entire campaign.
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For more of our posts on interacting with the Democratic Party, see:
Adventures as a Delegate to the Democratic Party Convention / Lisa Stiller
My Day at the Democratic National Convention / Rob Arner
For more of our posts about elections, see:
Pro-life Voting Strategy: A Problem without an Answer / John Whitehead
My Difficulty in Voting: Identifying the Problem (about the American Solidarity Party) / Monica Sohler
Oh My, How the Election Conundrum Has Changed (2024) / Rachel MacNair
The Democrats would do a great favor to themselves, their country and the world, if they at least supported the legality of abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy, and included in their plataform the need to reduce it to be “safe, rare and legal”. It will be much less bad than their current position. But we know exactly that the abortion industry earns millions of dollars every year and they tend to see unborn human life as meaningless, and as such they follow the money. They even target pregnancy crisis centers who save thousands of lives every year! The Republicans need to do much better than Trump.