As midterm election season kicks off, Democrats are out of the mainstream. They have developed a new strategy for countering popular Republican proposals: They deceive.
That’s what they did with tax reform, and that’s what they’re doing now with the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
Despite rhetoric to the contrary from Democrats, we now know American workers are receiving bigger paychecks thanks to the GOP tax bill. The Associated Press recently reported that the bill Democrats called a “middle-class con job” lead to an increase in take-home pay for American workers.
While some, such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., mocked the increase as mere “crumbs,” American workers told the AP they planned to use the increase to help pay for their health insurance, a Costco membership, or the arrival of a new baby.
As they had on taxes, Democrats also misled the American people about the pro-life bill.
Senate Democrats – joined by Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, blocked a bill in the Senate last week that would have banned performing an elective abortion after 20 weeks gestation. Science shows that unborn children can feel pain at 20 weeks gestation, and the legislation is intended to protect these children from pain, as well as shield women from the risks presented by dangerous late-term abortion procedures.
Democrats attacked the legislation. On Twitter, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called the bill “dangerous and cruel.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called it “awful legislation” and an attempt to “to undermine a woman’s constitutional right to make decisions about her own body.” Apparently there is no concern for the little life in the womb that will die in an abortion or the pain the little body will feel. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said the bill was an attempt by Republicans to “turn the clock back.”
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., a former Planned Parenthood executive, tweeted that the bill was part of an “part of an out-of-touch GOP agenda,” and it made “no exception to protect a woman’s health and no exceptions for survivors of rape and incest.” But even the Washington Post noted that the bill did contain exceptions in cases of rape, cases of incest with a minor, or cases where a woman’s life was at risk. The Post further noted Smith’s claim was “simply wrong.”
The comments showcase how far out on the left-wing limb the Democratic Party establishment has now gone. Last year, as the new Democratic National Committee Chairman, Tom Perez said there was no room in his party for pro-life Democrats. Democratic Party leadership has proudly and boastfully become the party of big abortion, bowing to Planned Parenthood, and accepting of abortion on demand. While critics of the 20-week bill characterized banning elective abortion at 20 weeks as extreme, a decade of research on public opinion on abortion by Marist, the polling institute for the Wall Street Journal, NBC News, and Thomson Reuters/McClatchy, shows it is the Democrats who hold the extremist position on abortion.
The most recent Marist poll on abortion, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, found that 63 percent of Americans support banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy unless the mother’s life is at risk, and that has to include quite a few Americans who support legal abortion. Only 33 percent oppose a 20-week ban.
The poll also found that 56 percent of Democrats said they support banning abortion in the latter half of pregnancy, up from 49 percent a year ago. Fifty-six percent of those who said they are pro-choice expressed support for banning elective abortion procedures after 20 weeks. A majority of independents also said they support a 20-week ban.
While the U.S. continues to permit elective abortion beyond 20 weeks, it is one of just seven nations – including China and North Korea – to do so. Several European countries, including France, prohibit abortion after 12 weeks without a medical reason.
Elected Democrats run a political risk in their vote on both tax reform and the 20-week pain capable bill, but the lingering question is: Will Republicans seize on these issues as we head into what is sure to be a fierce 2018 midterm election cycle?
Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, is a former domestic policy adviser to the Trump presidential transition team and Ohio’s former secretary of state.
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