When running for Senate in 2012, Democrat Heidi Heitkamp portrayed herself as something of a moderate on the issue of abortion, saying: “I do not support public funding of abortions, and believe that late term abortions should be illegal except when necessary to save the life of the mother.”
On Tuesday, Heitkamp didn’t live up to that campaign promise when she voted to filibuster a bill to make late-term abortions illegal after the fifth month of pregnancy, a point in development when humans can feel pain and survive if born prematurely. (The bill includes an exception for cases in which a health issue endangers the life of the mother, as Heitkamp had called for in 2012.
Why did Heitkamp change her position? She refused to talk about it when I caught up with her following the Senate Democrats’ policy luncheon in the Capitol on Tuesday:
Heitkamp: Where are you from?
TWS: The Weekly Standard
Heitkamp: Why don’t you call the office?
TWS: Is there a reason you voted against today’s bill?
Heitkamp: Why don’t you call the office and we’ll set up an interview.
TWS: Have you changed your mind about the issue, senator?
Heitkamp stood in silence for the next 30 seconds as she waited for a train back to her office and an aide encouraged me to contact her office.
Heitkamp’s communications director Abigal McDonough told me in an email: “Senator Heitkamp believes reproductive decisions should be left to a woman, her family, and her doctor, and it isn’t up to the government to determine what that timeline should be. She also supports the Hyde amendment and a state’s right to mandate parental consent for minors or restrict partial birth abortions, except when medically necessary to protect the life of the woman.”
The statement did not even attempt to reconcile Heitkamp’s 2012 support for banning late-term abortion and her vote on Tuesday. In fact, a straightforward reading of that statement–“it isn’t up to the government to determine what that timeline should be”–would indicate that Heitkamp opposes any gestational limit on abortion (the ban on partial-birth abortion bans a particular procedure, but does not prohibit abortion outright at any stage of pregnancy). Heitkamp’s spokeswoman declined to answer further questions on the record for attribution.
Tuesday’s vote highlighted the steep decline in the number of Democrats who take a moderate position on the issue of abortion. In 2003, 16 Democratic senators voted to ban partial-birth abortion, but only 3 Democratic senators voted to ban late-term abortion on Tuesday.
Democratic senator Tom Carper of Delaware, who voted for the 2003 partial-birth abortion ban, told me he didn’t vote for the late-term abortion ban on Tuesday because it didn’t include an exception allowing the abortion of “unborn children with who had just incredible deformities involving their brains or ability to function at all.” If there were a narrow exception for those circumstances, could he support a late-term abortion ban? “I haven’t thought about it,” Carper said.
