Now that Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives and ushered Nancy Pelosi in as speaker, they would be wise to listen to the voice of another (once) powerful Democratic woman, former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.
Fresh off her election loss, McCaskill has some advice for her party: Back off on abortion.
In an unusually candid New York Times podcast, she warns that the party’s over-emphasis on abortion is a “dumb” strategy and that they need to “shut up” on the issue: “It was not an issue that was going to bring me more votes.”
Pelosi, however, has made abortion rights part of her battle cry right out of the gate. Day one of her speakership included a fierce abortion fight, as Democrats insisted on the inclusion of funds for the international abortion industry as a condition in their bill to end the government shutdown. Rather than “shutting up” on the divisive issue of abortion, Pelosi is promoting abortion in our foreign policy as a priority over funding our own government.
Worse, this policy cannot even be reasonably described as “pro-choice” since it includes funding for the United Nations Population Fund, which supports coercive population control measures in China, including forced abortion and compulsory sterilization in some provinces.
Pelosi is just getting started, too. Look for repeated fights over taxpayer funding of abortion on the appropriations bills that will make their way through the upcoming Congress, as Democrats strip long established pro-life rider after pro-life rider from their bills.
Later this month, the annual March for Life will draw thousands upon thousands to Washington to bear witness to what biology textbooks confirm: a new and unrepeatable human life comes into existence at the moment of sperm-egg fusion; and to what the human heart knows deep down – that every one of those human lives is precious, unique, and part of our human family.
However, Pelosi has declared the House won’t be in session on the day of the March for Life, so members need not be in D.C. to hear the voices of the thousands of marchers standing up for the voiceless.
The tone-deafness on cultural issues in the Democratic Party is not limited to abortion. The antagonism and intolerance displayed by some Democrats towards people of faith continues to be jaw-dropping. Last year, we saw Judge Amy Coney Barrett grilled during her confirmation hearing because, in the mighty judgement of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the “dogma” of Barrett’s Catholic faith lived too “loudly” in her.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., recently questioned judicial nominee Brian Buescher on his membership in the charitable fraternal organization Knights of Columbus. The Knights are a mainstream Catholic group that has 2 million members, gives away roughly $180 million a year in charitable donations around the globe, and whose members have donated 75 million hours of philanthropic service.
So why are the Knights of Columbus so offensive to Harris? Apparently just by being Catholic, and as such support church teaching on human life and marriage. So, all Catholics need not apply? So much for the Constitution’s prohibition on a religious test for office.
If Harris is serious about her presidential ambitions, she might consider that not long ago, Knights of Columbus members were typically the backbone of the Democratic Party – largely working class, ethnic, union members whose votes dominated places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio.
Harris sounds more like someone who is trying to win a primary election in a Democratic Party that is increasingly ruled by extreme abortion politics and ideological purity, rather than someone who can win a general election, which these days are decided by just such voters in the aforementioned states. Just ask President Trump.
Maureen Ferguson is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a senior policy adviser for The Catholic Association.
