Democrats are ready to “soften” their image on abortion, according to the Boston Globe:
Leading Democrats, stung by election losses, are signaling they want the party to embrace antiabortion voters and candidates, softening the image of the party from one fiercely defensive of abortion rights to one that acknowledges the moral and religious qualms some Americans have about the issue.House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who is one of the most ardent supporters of abortion rights in Congress, has encouraged Tim Roemer, a former representative with a strong voting record against abortion, to run for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. The Democrats’ new Senate minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, opposes abortion rights.
No prominent Democrat has suggested that the party change its long-held stance that a woman should have the right to an abortion if she chooses. But as Democrats assess what went wrong for them in November, some are urging a “big tent” approach that is more welcoming to those who oppose abortion. Democrats say that attitude might be especially useful with Hispanics, a critical constituency that tends to be Roman Catholic and whose majority support for Democrats has slipped in recent elections.
That the “Hispanic vote” didn’t particularly help them this time around is quite a shock, I’m sure. Equally shocking is the fact that some people actually vote for what’s right instead of what’s politically expedient or beneficial to them in terms of government handouts or other perks for having brown skin. Good character is a great quality.
But Democrats are a little fearful of coming out in favor of unborn life unequivocally:
Abortion rights activists are alarmed at the potential shift in the party’s approach to the issue as they look warily ahead to Supreme Court nomination fights and efforts in Congress to restrict abortion. But Democratic leaders say they can reach out to voters in the “red states,” which voted Republican in November, without compromising their party platform on abortion.“All Democrats are united around the idea that we should make abortion safe, legal, and rare,” but “we also have to be open to people who are pro-life,” said Simon Rosenberg, the president of the New Democratic Network who is mulling a run for the DNC chairmanship.
Safe, legal and rare? To regress back to my Valley Girl days, Gag me with a spoon!
Ever wonder what the real motive is for rabid infanticide supporters? I used to send links of my column to a group of friends, mostly liberals. Somewhat politically apathetic, they usually responded with a “How are you doing?,” rarely commenting on the column. One day I got a scathing message from one of them. One of my anti-abortion pieces sent her through the roof. She told me off, giving me a history lesson on women’s rights and the run-down on the right to choose, etc.
I was taken aback by the fervor of her response. I’d sent anti-skin color preference articles, anti-NAACP articles, articles comparing white Democrats to slave masters and by implication, black liberals to slaves (I thought I’d catch it with that one.), but nothing so moved her as my plea for the protection of unborn children.
Isn’t it curious that the right to kill babies provokes such passion?
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In 1976 I attended a Democratic District Convention with my sister. She was a delegate from the caucus she attended, although I tried mightily to get her to go to the Republican caucus. She was pro-life as were almost 50% of the delegates there. [Now she votes Republican.] They had a ballot vote on various issues and since they were short of people to count the results, I volunteered to help. According to the leadership 55% of the delegates needed to support an issue for it to pass. I was counting the votes on abortion and various other social issues. Although the proposition supporting abortion was worded in the most enthusiastic way, it was getting just barely over 50% support. When I was nearing the end of the ballots one of the leaders told me that she would finish up. Imagine my surprise when it was announced that the abortion rights plank had passed! Even if every vote left had been a yes vote, there would not have been enough to put it over 55%. I did not protest because my sister would have been sure to point out that I was Republican and this would have become the issue.
Many of those who did not vote to support abortion are probably still in the party for whatever reason. How serious the Democratic leadership is about being a “big tent” party will be seen in their response to the confirmation of nominees to the Federal Courts. If this is just about tricking pro-life voters into voting for Democrats, their opposition to Conservative nominees will be just as strong. We’ll see.
Forgot the point I was leading up to. Maybe the vehemence is related to the fact that supporters of abortion know in their hearts that they really do not have the support of the majority of voters and want to make up in noise what they lack in numbers.
– Isn’t it curious that the right to kill babies provokes such passion? –
Well, actually, no, it’s not. It’s what Constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe, with whom I disagree on just about everything else, called “a clash of absolutes,” and there’s nothing that gets the juices flowing like one of those.
Remember: the pro-choice forces see it as a struggle over who owns a woman’s body, and who may therefore dictate what’s done with it. They may be wrong, but having cast the issue as a rights battle, they have no alternative but to man the barricades. One does not compromise on rights.
The pro-life forces see it as the defense of the innocent and helpless. We, too, see the issue as one of rights: the right to life of the unborn baby. So we tend to be absolutists as well, at least when discussing the moral aspects of the matter.
One of the hardest lessons for the political activist to internalize is that to attack the opponent’s moral position puts him beyond all possibility of persuasion. It’s hard because for the typical activist, there’s a strong moral premise beneath every political position he holds. That’s what fuels his efforts (unless he’s a paid functionary, of course). To keep his moral horror of those who disagree with him properly reined in is about the most difficult thing he could ever try to do.
If you want to be effective at persuading others, wonder less at their passion in defending their “obviously morally wrong” views, and think more about how ***you*** would feel if someone attacked your moral position on an issue about which you felt strongly.
I have a good table on my blog including a 3-dimensional analysis of the election based on Bush’s policies:
pro-War — about 21 mil. votes for, 21 mil. against
pro-Tax Cuts (econ) — 8 mil for, 30 mil. against
pro-Morals — 27 mil for, 4 mil. against.
Success in Iraq, like in Afghanistan, is likely to lead to the War becoming a wash — the Dem’s will reduce their opposition; and may even call for more democracy (in Sudan, Haiti, for instance) (which I’d support, too!).
The Dems are terrified, or should be, of losing the Catholics. “Real” Catholics, who go to church weekly and listen to the Pope, are going to be hearing more and more that abortion and euthanasia are non-negotiable items. And that politicians who publicly oppose Catholic positions are “out of communion” with the Church. See First Things for more on this.
LaShawn, the pro-God Christians, both Catholics and Protestants, are going to be finding more and more common ground against the secular Fundamentalists of the Left. The Dems will either become more pro-life before lots more losing of elections — or afterwords.
How many fetal humans will be killed before America copies Poland? Nobody knows.
There is something more there than an attack on rights involved in the extreme reactions. Three times I’ve had abortion supporters screaming at me about my pro-life position. One woman knocked a glass of water into my lap and didn’t even pause to say, “Excuse me.” These were women who were almost friends. Since I was known as a feminist, perhaps they assumed it was my duty to support the feminist line. I gave myself two chances by prolonged study and reflection to change my position. I even read through Hearn’s medical text on abortion.
Beyond throwing in a pertinent question or two, I usually don’t challenge abortion supporters. I know what’s coming. For me, the question is, “Why don’t I start to scream when my pro-life position is challenged?” The abortion question is personal for me. I was born with multiple heart defects and was a girl when my farmer-father wanted a boy. My parents were not prepared with a name for a girl and took a name from the newspaper. Had prenatal testing and abortion been available, I doubt I would have been born. Life has had its challenges but I’m glad to be here.
Perhaps technology will help us. The two cases I know of where a pro-abortion person changed were where they saw a sonogram picture of an unborn child. As Zell Miller said, “I felt reminded of the Roberta Flack song, ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.’ That was a baby I was looking at.”
And some people may be touchy because they’ve had an abortion themselves and feel personally attacked. Some may feel guilty for what they’ve done, and don’t want to hear anything but the platitudes that their choice was morally correct.
That’s what I would think if their attack was particularly vehement.
Click on my name to read about Peg Noonan’s proposal for the Democrats to regain some lost ground by opposing the secularization of Christmas. You will see also why the Dems would never do it – as it would cost them the heart and soul of the party.
They want the Catholic vote bad, but they’ll never get it until they make abortions illegal, IMO.
The fact that the Democratic Party base is shrinking may have something to do with this as well. Remember all those stories about the “Roe Effect” breeding the democrats out of majority status? I don’t know that it’s true or even good data analysis, but if even some Democrats buy into it then it could be causing them to re-examine reproductive issues.
They need to empower democrats to have larger families (or families at all) or in a few generations they will have attrited to the point that they can’t win without making major inroads into the red counties. Looking at abortion is one possible ideology change.
The democrats are ideologues, but they are also realists. They know that they need to win elections or die, so they will scrap their party planks that are preventing this from happening.
Since abortion is the height of selfishness, I’m not suprised at all that it would provoke a high level of anger.
Before my first wife succumbed to Ovarian cancer, we often went on weekend “duty” at one of the abortion mills in town. This particular one was managed by a woman who was dating one of the police who would be there “to be sure no one got hurt”. He actually threatened to run me over.
But I digress. Many of the women who worked with us had previously had abortions and could really identify with the ladies, but they were villified just like we were. We were seen as the enemy with “no compassion” towards these women whose “rights” we were trying to limit.
Some of them thought that they had no other options. Even though we had contacts who would have assisted with adoption, they would not (most of them) talk with us. Every once in a while, we would get through. And then we got an ultrasound machine. Most of the ladies who saw their baby and heard the heartbeat decided to walk away from the clinic. But even then, some were determined.
I had a point when I started this, but I must be having a senior moment. Sorry.
I am surprised you are suprised by the passion of those with whom you disagree on the issue of abortion.
When noramlly law abiding citizens are accused of being murderers (baby killers) or at least supporting murder, I am not surprised at all that they defend themselves passionately.
Our differences boil down to whether the life brewing in a woman’s uteras is a human child or a human fetus. If you believe it is a human child then I understand why you think killing it is murder. Whether that life is a child or a fetus though, is not a matter of fact, it is a matter of faith. You have yours and I have mine. Neither of us can support our belif with facts.
I respect your faith even though I disagree with you. I see you as just another honest person who is trying to nail down exactly when some life can be defined as a human child, not as a fanatical theocrat trying to restrict others’ rights. When you start looking at the Pro Choice faction in the same light, as honest people struggling to find the truth (even if we are currently missing it), maybe we can have a civil dialog.
Try enlightening us instead of denigrating us.
While I think I’d be justified if I denigrated “pro-choice” people, I haven’t done that. While I appreciate that you respect my faith, I don’t respect that someone would suck the life out of a woman and call it a right.
If “Safe, legal, and rare” means that they’ll begin pushing for abortion to be less common and promoting alternatives (i.e. adoption) this will be an improvement, eh? But somehow I’m skeptical. I suspect the emphasis is still on the “legal” and not on the “rare”.
Maybe they can drop their push for public funding of abortions, for starters. That would definitely be a step toward “rare”, huh? Something tells me they won’t…
Dear LaShawn,
Thanks for keeping the abortion issue in the spotlight. Once again, you’re spot on, as the Brits would say.
Just three points:
(1)Just before Roe v. Wade in the very early 1970’s, pro-life was doing pretty well politically. Even in N.Y. in 72, legalization passed very, very narrowly. At that time, many major Dem figures, including Teddy Kennedy, at least paid lip-service to being against abortion. Then Roe v. Wade came down, and judicial fiat derailed the political process, and . . . the Dems started changing their tune, at least at the national level. Political opportunism anyone?
(2)Like you probably are, I am just sick and tired of being told that the pro-life stance is a matter of “faith”—of an irrational preference for one ungrounded view over another. The fact of the matter is that (a) biologically you’ve got a growing human individual from the moment of fertilization; (b)there’s no good reason to deny innocent human individuals legal protection just because they’re still growing. Making human individuals meet some criterion other than just being human individuals before according them legal protection is a dangerous thing. Think of slavery. . .
(3)Yes, there are unreasonable people in the pro-life movement, but the pro-life position is not intrinsically unreasonable, whereas the pro-choice position is. True, some otherwise reasonable people subscribe to it, and we owe them a good account of why they’re wrong. But we also have to reckon with the fact that the abortion culture in which we live has resulted from POWERFUL propagandistic efforts that express a desire to revolutionize traditional sexual morality. Thus, not only are most people who are pro-choice pro-choice mainly because it’s part of the commnon sense of the culture that’s been created around them to be pro-choice, but to touch abortion is to touch the whole sexual lifestyle most of us are addicted to as a society. I mean, if abortion were wrong, then sex couldn’t just be about fun with no strings attached, women couldn’t be the same as men, etc., etc.
And yes, I will continue reading even in the post-commenting phase.
Adrian
They may say “rare” but I think that’s only their attempt at broadening the tent. Major contributors like Planned Parenthood have no intention of making abortion rare. They fought and are fighting legislation right now that would have government funded ultrasound machines in their clinics. WHY? Why wouldn’t they want the woman to “choose” based on all possible information? One can only conclude that it is not an informed choice they are supporting at all.
The Dems. can stop right here and right now pandering to Christians like me just because they lost the election. I highly doubt that they are softening or changing their stance of abortion, and think it’s a travety that basically they are just trying to pull the wool over some naive Christian’s eyes. See it for what it is, people. :-/
Doug, a little Biology lesson for you. I notice that you referred to the baby growing in a woman’s uterus as a LIFE. You are quite correct. From the moment of conception, it consists of 2 cells melded into 1. The definition of cell is the Basic structural and functional unit of all LIVING things. However, I don’t see from your writings that you have a problem with that. What you have a problem with is calling it a human being. Well, what is it? A goat? A tree? A baby seal? A computer? Since it is 2 living cells from 2 humans that have combined to again make 1 living cell that grows and multiplies, it’s a human life!
From a party perspective, I think the abortion issue runs a lot deeper than Faith or Rights. I think it is about Money and Dependency.
First, abortion is an industry. It is a government subsidized multi-million dollar industry. The reason there are so many legislatures pushing to keep it legal is because of all the money involved.
Second, abortion encourages government dependency. For a small fee we will take away a problem – your “unwanted child”. Oh, and by the way, the welfare office is two doors down. God is a myth. Feel free to live irresponsibly, there is a giant taxpayer safety net ready to take the blow of any “mistakes” you might make.
As a 25 yr old woman about to be married, and to begin to consider having children, I can say for 100% certain that I do NOT want the gov’t of the USA in, by, or around my uterus or any non-viable life — healthy or not-so-healthy. I can decide for myself what will happen with my body w/o the whole country involved.
And therein lies the crux of the matter. We’re limited in using our bodies to hurt another, touch another and to a certain degree, hurt ourselves. But we are, much to this country’s disgrace, allowed to suck the life from our wombs down a sink and whatever they do with dead babies too big to go down the sink.
Non-viability does not render that life any less human. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when someone makes that argument on the Day of Judgment.
Has everyone noticed that the European media never refers to an unborn baby as anything but a fetus (feotus)?
I am primarily secular. I believe in a higher power. Here is how I come down on the issue.
1) The fetus is a human (or at least homo sapiens). By definition.
2) Whether that human has a soul is purely faith based. By definition.
3) At an early enough stage, the fetus cannot feel pain and has ZERO intellectual capacity (it doesn’t yet have brain cells or neurons – in fact no cells are differentiated).
4) Every moral argument I have heard against killing the fetus at that early stage was based purely on faith. (Note, I’m not backing away from non-pc terms like killing).
Going beyond that stage, to when the embyo has any differentiated neurons, and still trying to argue – “well, its not fully aware”, is completely subjective.
Like euthanasia, it is not a slippery slope – it is cliff. Still, REMOVING FAITH, I believe it is possible to reach a clear moral decision that killing the human at very early development, such as with a morning after pill, is ok. Admittedly, I find it disconcerting to use the phrase “killing the human”.
Partial Birth abortion is clearly a monstrosity. Even if there is a reason to remove the baby for the mothers health (unlikely), why do we have to kill it in the process?
Am I fooling myself? Is there room for any compromise? For instance, would any of you enshrine some protection to a right to choose at the earlier end in exchange for illegality for the rest of it?
The problem, josh — is on what basis do we do that?
What basis can we use to “enshrine the right to choose” on the earlier end that will not ALSO work for later ends?
(Frankly, I’ve even heard people that don’t think this right to choose should end at birth but, rather, when the child is able to support themselves.)
I would welcome such a proposal as a step toward the right from where we are now. But I would not stop fighting until all the children were safe. I do believe we will come to the day when most people look back and go “How did America go so long thinking this was okay?” the way we do now about slavery.
esp with every increase in technology 1) Allowing babies to live that were born more and more premature (My sister had her third child last year, that survived in conditions that just five years ago, he would have died of because the technology did not exist) 2) And showing earlier and earlier in the pregnancy how “alive” the baby truly is.
You SAY they can not feel pain at that age — but frankly, it could as much be that we don’t yet have the technology to detect it. (Not to mention it is not a good excuse for being okay to terminate a human life.)
Dear Josh,
Here’s a syllogism:
(1) Taking the life of innocent human beings is wrong;
(2) The unborn, from the moment of conception, are innocent human beings;
(3) Therefore, taking the lives of the unborn, from the moment of conception, is wrong.
Note that I haven’t said anything about the soul. And that I haven’t cited the Bible.
I presume you agree with premise one. Do you agree with premise two? If not, why not?
I must say, I have trouble seeing how the unborn is not a human being from the moment of conception. Before that moment, there is nothing that could develop naturally into an adult. After that moment, there is. But in between conception and adulthood there is no comparable moment where an essentially new entity comes into being. Or is there?
I also have trouble understanding why not feeling pain, or not being conscious, or not being viable, or not being whatever should disqualify the unborn from deserving protection against being killed. I mean, adult cows feel pain, are aware, are viable, etc., but it’s ok to kill and eat them. In other words, the point isn’t so much being able to do such things as it is being a human being.
The decisive threshhold isn’t reached when the new human actually starts to do X, Y, and Z. It’s reached when you go from a sperm and an egg that will never, ever be able to do X, Y, Z to a new human.
To put it another way, a human being in the zygote phase is not a potential human being, but an actual human being on its way to maturity. If its immaturity doesn’t change WHAT it is—already is—then why should it constitute even the slightest reason for removing from it the protections due human beings?
Or am I missing something?
Cordially,
Adrian
Has anyone noticed that in many news stories about the grisly murder in Skidmore, MO, they report that the murdress cut the “fetus” from the dead mother?
Sorry, no reports use the word “murderess” [as it should be spelled,] they do use the term “fetus.”
Re: Josh…
There certainly is room for compromise both scientifically and theologically . St. Thomas Aquinas theorized that human life began several weeks after conception. That human life began at “the quickening” of the fetus was the most common opinion among our founding fathers. I agree with Pres. Reagan that if you don’t know then you have to error on the side of life.
Regardless the debate on life at conception the legislators could rule it most appropriate to return the issue to the states by nullifying Roe v Wade. They choose not to.
The fact is that Democrats want no compromise. Clinton, the originator of the “safe but rare” talking point vetoed partial birth abortion and opposed parental notification; neither safe nor rare.
An exceptional example of the progressive mindset is the recently passed Stem Cell bond issue in California. This bill funded by a rich Democrat and supported by Gov. Arnold poses to be aimed at furthering research. In actuality the bill ignores funding for the most promising cord blood stem cells or the most proven adult stem cell lines. All the billions of dollars HAVE to be spent on cells from harvested embryos. Why would they write this limitation into this bill?
These people are determined to enshrine the right to kill babies. They will only compromise when they’re driven to their knees. God willing Americans will increasingly be driven to disgust by their relentless focus on death over life.
Why do we argue about when life begins
when the potential for life is every bit as important? Everyone that can read this at one time was a child, baby , and embryo. The young child that is aborted no longer has the potential for a life, no longer to have the potential to find the cure for cancer, no longer has the potential to be the next Mother Theresa, well you get my point. Just as an aside if you look at the location of abortion clinics i understand that they are mainly in minority districts. Think about it maybe that could be called genocide?
Chrissy,
Newborn children are also not “viable” in any meaningful sense of the word. They cannot clothe, feed, or take care of themselves in any way. They are totally dependent on others to care for them. Should our government not protect their lives since they aren’t any more viable than a fetus?
Josh,
Is there any way (except through faith) to believe that any human (regardless of age or development) has a soul?
Since when does feeling pain give someone or something the right not to be killed?
Every fetus has a brain and brain cells. By only thirty days after conception (when the unborn child is considered an embryo) the 3 primary parts of the child’s brain are already present according to “From Conception to Birth” by Roberts Rugh, Ph.D., Landrum B. Shettles, Ph.D., M.D. Harper & Row, (New York), 1971, p. 41
Maybe you meant “embryo” instead of “fetus?”
Nobody with half a brain should trust the Democrats if they suddenly become “pro-life.” They might get voted in and THEN show their true colors and become pro-genocide again. If the Democrats suddenly became pro-Christian, pro-defense, pro-life, anti-gay “marriage”, I still wouldn’t trust them as long as people like Michael Moore are registered Democrat.
They’re very manipulative people — always watch your back!
Try this experiment to REALLY set your friend off, LaShawn: Ask them what they think about the beheadings that have occurred in Iraq. Typically, when you limit it to just the physical act and don’t involve the political issues surrounding it, the reaction is one of horror and “How could they??”
After you receive that reaction, ask them why they don’t feel that way about babies that are routinely cut up in the same way (or even worse)? For some folks you may need a plastic shield for the spittle that will commence flying at that point.
I’ve asked that question for years–”Why does the right to cut up a small person or pull the brains from it so that it no longer lives arouse such incredible fury when it’s challenged?” You’d think those so ardently in support of it would at least acknowledge the incredibly difficult nature of the subject and speak of it with sadness, even tears, as a somehow necessary thing. But most don’t. Instead, they blast you like you called their Mama a bad name.
When you consider that as Christians we believe that humans are made in God’s image, I suppose it’s no wonder that sin would twist the heart to try as hard as it can to erase His Face from the mind.
What do pro-abortionists and islmo-facists have in common? They both do not respect the value of life.
If you respect life, then you seek not to take it, no matter what the circumstance.
Those that don’t have no compunction when it comes to the taking of a life. They seek to justify it in any way possible.
The right to choose advocates that a woman has a right to do as she wishes with her body, but doesn’t she have an obligation to act responsibly? Doesn’t the desire for an abortion denote irresponsibility in and of itself? It is the utter disregard for a consequence for irresponsible behavior. The fact that we normalize a “get out of jail free card” (add welfare to that too) shows that our society is continuing to seek absolution for any and all responsibilities.
There is no safe, legal, and rare abortion. Ask someone who has had an abortion. There are immense risks to the woman, both present and future. And it is certainly not rare. It encourages the same behavior that has led to the rampant rise in AIDS cases, STD’s, et al. And we all know what it is doing to the African-American community. A-A women are #1 in abortions per year. You can fill in the blanks from there as to where they rank in other cases too.
The moral depravity we see should not be suprising, especially if you are one of faith. It is foretold to us one and all.
Evon,
I blogged the baby v fetus issue on Monday. One thing I’ve noticed, is that now that the child has been found, is alive, healthy and in her father’s arms, most of the press are calling her a baby. Even ones that were calling her a fetus as late as Monday morning.
Curious.
The democrats are losing voters because they have become too under the influence of left-wing special interest groups and trial lawyers they could be nailing the lid of the coffin on their own corrupt candidates and frankly ted kennedy should be voted out of office along with a few of his liberal cronies
In answer to your question, LaShawn, I find it totally unsurprising. How could one be apathetic to such a question?
To quote a little old nun you might have heard of, “When a mother can kill her baby, what is left of civilization to save?”
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