Issue Position: Reproductive Freedom from a Pro-Life Perspective
Issue Position
"In the long term, our cultural unease with abortion, this refusal to drop the subject, is our most hopeful sign of health. Other countries, sadly, have more or less learned to live with it; they don't see it as anything to get worked up about. But not here. This thing -- this horrible thing so contrary to our ideals, our inclusiveness, our kindness, our love for one another -- has been grafted onto American society. But it is not a functioning organ -- it's a disfigurement. It won't take. It won't heal. The body rejects it."
"For we know -- and this used to be the credo of my party -- that progress can never come by exploiting or sacrificing any one class of people. Progress is a hollow word unless everyone is counted in and no one written off, especially the most weak and vulnerable among us.
You cannot stifle this debate with a piece of paper. No edict, no federal mandate can put to rest the grave doubts of the American people. Legal abortion will never rest easy on this nation's conscience. It will continue to haunt the consciences of men and women everywhere. The plain facts of biology, the profound appeals of the heart, are far too unsettling to ever fade away."
- The late governor of Pennsylvania, Robert P. Casey.
The Pro-Life movement should have a natural home in the Democrat Party. It should have a home in any American political party, because of our shared foundations based on personal freedom and the right to life and that all are created equal. But the Democrat Party, at its best, has always stood up for the weak against the powerful.
We may never agree 100% in this country about when it is okay to have an abortion, but it is easily seen that our current laws do not reflect where we are as a nation. Even President Clinton said in 1993, "Very few Americans believe that all abortions all the time are all right. Almost all Americans believe that abortion should be illegal when the children can live without the mother's assistance, when the children can live outside the mother's womb." The nation's pro-life views have grown even stronger since the president said this. For this reason alone, the Democrat Party needs to look at this issue with fresh eyes. We are alienating millions of voters, simply because the party takes an absolutist, pro-choice, abortion-on-demand position that very few Americans actually hold. But more important than votes is the need to defend the lives of unborn babies.
Many Democrats remain aligned with the most radical and extreme pro-choice segment of our party, even though they are uncomfortable with abortion on demand. I can only surmise that this is because they think the pro-life camp in America is c-r-a-z-y and honestly doesn't care about women and want them to "die on the floor" as one of our party's highest leaders claimed. I don't believe that is the case.
But if you believe the pro-life Republicans are crazy and can't be trusted, then it's up to us as Democrats to stand up and pull our party and nation in the correct direction to a more just pro-life position.
Many Democrats also believe that pro-life politicians aren't sincere and that they are only using the abortion issue during election season, but have no intention to actually change our laws to protect the unborn. On the whole, I do not believe this to be true either, although it is certainly not unheard of for a politician to give lip service to any particular issue.
But if you believe the pro-life politicians on the other side aren't sincere, then it's up to us as Pro-Life Democrats to stand up, lead, and craft laws that protect unborn babies.
Other Democrat voters complain that pro-life politicians on the other side aren't consistent, that they do not oppose the death penalty, or torture, or unnecessary wars, or whatever particular issue the voter raises above the issue of abortion.
But if you believe other pro-life politicians are not consistent on the issue of life, that is no excuse for us to be inconsistent by opposing the death penalty, but then not voting to change abortion laws.
Perhaps some of us Democrats have learned to keep our head down, if we've seen other pro-life Democrats get run out of the party, or seen the attacks by members of our party against any pro-life groups and initiatives. Even within the Democrat Party, the extreme absolutist pro-choice position is in the minority and it's time for the rest of us to stand up and have our say as well.
What has such an absolutist position led to in this country and others? Do we want to continue down this route, or reexamine the issue with courage and the experience and knowledge gained since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973?
Pro-choice activists will often use the phrase "reproductive freedom". What does that phrase really mean? In China, population control policies have led to women being forced to undergo abortions. Those are the people who have the most reason to cry for help in terms of a lack of reproductive freedom. In India, millions of baby girls have been aborted, not due to force by government, but by cultural forces which require a future dowry for a girl which the families cannot afford. As a result, in these two countries there are entire generations where the naturally balanced ratio between men and women has been disrupted. Tens of millions of baby girls have been killed, simply because they are female. This is gendercide. This also increases the market for sex trafficking, further victimizing the young women who were allowed to see their birthday.
But are we really so different in America? Many women are pressured into allowing their unborn babies to be killed by the men in their lives, sometimes by other family members, by cultural expectations, or by a lack of support. Our desensitization to abortion, the killing of unborn babies, has now led to discrimination and death for children for any reason from the most trivial to the most tragic.
A few weeks ago, in response to an expose' of abortion clinics which gladly went along with sex selective abortions, Congress took up a bill to impose fines and penalties on doctors and clinics that perform abortions based on gender or other forms of discrimination. Tragically, the majority our our party opposed this bill.
In America, we have esteemed heads of bio-ethics departments at the most prestigious universities today who argue that it is okay to kill a child, even weeks after it is born. A recent paper for a peer-reviewed medical journal by professors in the British Commonwealth have coined a new term for it, "after-birth abortions". (As one commentator observed, if that term catches on, we'll have to start referring to abortions as pre-birth infanticide.) This is the road we are headed down and we MUST stop and turn around.
The first immediate step we can take is to no longer fund organizations that perform abortions. Planned Parenthood claims that only 3% of their services involve abortion. If this is true, then they should have no problem spinning off that tiny portion of their business into a new completely separate organization with no co-mingling of funds. If they will not do this, we should simply redirect the money that the federal government sends to Planned Parenthood to other organizations designed to help women. Planned Parenthood is under investigation for Medicaid fraud as well as other illegal activity and needs to be held accountable.
At one time, the civil rights position within the Democrat Party was the minority position. Our state's most accomplished Democrat, Hubert Humphrey, boldly stood up in the 1948 Democrat National Convention to speak for the minority report on civil rights. It wasn't enough for us in the 50's and 60's to simply funnel money to help those who were oppressed. Laws needed to be changed, and Hubert Humphrey led that fight to first get our party on the right track, and then the nation. Many Democrats today who are sympathetic to the pro-life cause think that funneling money to social programs is enough to reduce abortion. While that is important, it is wholly insufficient. Laws need to be changed. Hubert Humphrey was also pro-life. I call on us to honor his spirit, and fight for justice for unborn children, living among us even today in their mother's wombs.
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