Leaders of the abortion business Planned Parenthood are fighting ruthlessly to keep the Democratic Party in lockstep as party leaders debate whether their radical pro-abortion stance is turning away voters.
Cecile Richards, the highly paid CEO of the largest abortion chain in America, talked with Politico this week about the on-going debate. She demanded that the party back only politicians who vote to support abortion on demand.
A few weeks ago, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Ben Ray Luján sparked renewed debate after he said his committee will not deny support to candidates who are pro-life. Other party leaders, including pro-abortion Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders, also have said their party should accept pro-life candidates because they tend to represent the views of rural Democrats.
Richards criticized Luján, a pro-abortion politician himself, for his willingness to support candidates who believe unborn babies deserve a right to life.
“It’s a shocking sort of misunderstanding of actually where the country is … which is overwhelmingly supportive of abortion rights and also, who are the ground troops that kind of fuel the election of candidates,” Richards told Politico.
But Richards is wrong, and Democratic Party leaders are right to question if their platform matches the beliefs of their constituents.
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Democratic Party has adopted an increasingly radical pro-abortion position in the past several years. Last summer, the Democratic National Committee approved a new platform calling for full support of abortion for any reason up to birth and taxpayer funding of abortion – positions that most Americans oppose.
Polls consistently show that most Americans do not want their tax dollars paying for abortions. For example, a Politico/Harvard University poll in October 2016 found that a majority of voters oppose taxpayer funding for abortions. Just 36 percent of likely voters supported the issue, while 58 percent opposed it. These findings are consistent with previous polls from various groups.
Richard claimed that most voters are just “personally pro-life,” meaning that they would never have an abortion but they also do not want laws against it.
“Fundamentally, perhaps [what Luján is] missing is, people can distinguish between their own personal feelings and what they believe government or politicians should do. And people even in some of the most conservative areas of the country who may themselves personally say, ‘I would never choose to have an abortion,’ or, ‘That’s not something that’s right for me,’ also, absolutely do not believe politicians should be making decisions about pregnancy for women,” Richards argues. “I think he’s totally wrong and I’ll use every opportunity to convince him of that.”
But that is not what polls show. Most Americans oppose most abortions and want laws to limit abortions or make them illegal. According to a recent Gallup poll, 68 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances or legal only under certain circumstances. This includes many Democrats.
Democrats for Life estimates more than 23 million Democrats in the U.S. are pro-life. Last year, Pew Research found that 28 percent of Democrats say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. Marist/KofC polling also found that 23 percent of Democrats consider themselves pro-life and 40 percent say abortion is morally wrong.
Richards and her fellow abortion activists, on the other hand, will accept nothing short of full support of abortion for any reason up to birth and taxpayer funding of it. According to Gallup, just 29 percent of Americans hold this radical position.
The answer to Planned Parenthood’s wishes is more women in Congress, or so says Richards. But she should be careful what she wishes for. Women in politics and in society are some of the strongest advocates against abortion and for the rights of unborn babies.
If the Democratic Party wants to win back voters, it should stop listening to the abortion industry lobbyists, and start listening to its constituents who are tired of supporting a party that’s so heavily devoted to the killing of unborn babies.
