The anti-abortion Democrats who demanded no change in abortion coverage in the Affordable Care Act eventually lost their seats to Republicans, some after anti-abortion groups unsatisfied by the compromise campaigned against them anyway.
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“I would certainly like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion: a rich woman, a middle class woman, or a poor woman”, is how Henry Hyde, the late congressman for whom the appropriations rider is named, once described it.
Hillary Clinton’s newly minted running mate made a workmanlike introduction of himself to the Democratic National Convention, seemingly shaking off some early nerves to attack Donald Trump, flash his Spanish skills and tout Hillary Clinton as the only option to serve as commander-in-chief. She believes the goal of making abortion rare through better health care and safety net programs for pregnant women should be one area where pro-choice and pro-life Democrats can work together. The 2016 party platform makes no mention of “rare”, and Clinton herself seems to have dropped the word from her political lexicon.
Now, the Democrats’ party platform is calling for repeal of the measure. Tim Kaine of Virginia, whom Clinton selected to be her vice presidential nominee, has suggested that he has personal qualms about abortion while compiling a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the party’s pro-choice components have consolidated power. There is little in the polls to support a more liberal posture on the issue. Since Gallup began tracking abortion in the 1970s, the main default position of Americans has been support for abortion “only under certain circumstances”.
According to a 2014 Pew Research survey, millennials hold similarly hedged views. We urge all states and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts.
The future of the Democratic Party depends on its diversity, its ability to remain inclusive. “When we try to find Democratic fundraisers to help us raise money”, Day said, “they say, ‘Oh, we don’t want to touch that'”.
“Clinton, Kaine, and (Planned Parenthood head Cecile) Richards are absolute extremists pushing the Democratic Party further and further on abortion, alienating the one-third of Democrats who call themselves pro-life”, Dannenfelser added. This makes many anti-abortion activists insane, since they can not imagine having honest moral qualms about abortion without denying that women should have any say about it whatsoever; it should be a matter decided between men and their religious authorities (also men).
Abortion politics is unforgiving terrain. She said that his vote for “fast-track suggests to me that he’s willing to advance a process that is undemocratic in order to achieve an objective with this”.
“This platform’s language just says (to abortion opponents) you are no longer welcome”, said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life. The answer to reviving the party in places like the South, she argued, is pro-life Democrats like Edwards.
Democratic critics can be similarly unkind. “The other said I’m un-American because I don’t support taxpayer-funded abortions”. The new platform doesn’t endorse “safe, legal and rare”, which carried an implicit moral judgment against abortion and a desire to curtail it.
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On July 6, Kaine was asked by The Weekly Standard about language in a draft of the Democratic Party’s platform which called for an end to the Hyde Amendment.
