“To every pro-life American — Republican, independent, or Democrat,” Vice President Mike Pence announced, “you have a home in today’s Republican Party.”
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday afternoon, Pence touted President Trump’s record on pro-life issues. Inside the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, where thousands of conservatives gather each year for what now amounts to a massive Trump rally, the idea rings a bit hollow. After all, pro-life Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, certainly isn’t welcome among this group of Republicans.
But it is likely true that pro-lifers of all political stripes are more welcome in the GOP than in the Democratic Party, at least rhetorically. The front-runner in the Democratic 2020 primaries, Bernie Sanders, said being pro-choice on abortion is essential to being a Democrat, effectively writing off the small contingent of pro-life Democrats. Amy Klobuchar, through strongly pro-choice, has said she would “build a big tent” by welcoming pro-life voters to the Democratic Party. Her attitude is the exception rather than the rule.
What both Democrats and Republicans miss when discussing views on abortion within their ranks is that abortion opinions don’t fall neatly along party lines. According to one Pew Research Center poll, more than one-fifth of Democrats believe abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. More than one-third of Republicans say it should be legal in all or most cases. That means that if Democrats and Republicans alienate those who defect from the party line on abortion, they’ll lose a significant chunk of voters, and they may not gain the ones on the other side.
If Democrats want to attract moderate voters, they must signal that they’re willing to avoid a Ralph Northam-level acceptance of abortion. (A majority of those who support abortion oppose third-trimester abortions, by the way.) And if Republicans are sincere about their pro-life values, they should “build a big tent” too, welcoming people of all political ideologies to join their cause.
