Members of the Democratic Party aren’t happy with New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang. Their reason: Yang is not pro-abortion enough.
It’s not that Yang is pro-life. Rather, clips from his 2020 presidential bid resurfaced over the weekend in which he said that abortions are “a tragedy” and that members of his party “have to get back to the point where no one is suggesting that we be celebrating an abortion at any point in the pregnancy.”
For that, Yang got negative responses from fellow Democrats.
Former New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito tweeted, “WTF is this garbage??? Seriously. This is beyond the pale. I have sole authority in all that pertains to my body INCLUDING choosing NOT to have children. Ain’t nothing tragic about it dude. Ever. #MyBodyMyChoice.“
New York state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi tweeted, “@AndrewYang attempts to control women’s bodies and actions—by laws, by words, by religions, by governments, and by societies spans thousands of years. Don’t be one of those guys—whose words perpetuate misogyny by making women bad for celebrating their right to choose.”
And fellow mayoral candidate Maya Wiley tweeted, “Repro choices, incl. abortion, is health care. It’s often life-saving health care, esp. for women of color. Political leaders should fight to expand access for those who need it, not make them feel convicted in the court of public opinion for taking control of their health & body.”
However, when it comes to the issue at hand, Yang has a better approach than his peers. If the Democratic Party doesn’t want to put any meaningful restrictions on abortion, it should at least have abortion reduction plans, emphasizing how it plans to cut the abortion rate.
Ideally, there would be no abortions in the United States, there would be no providers, and there would be no demand for abortion. It would be great if the U.S. could adopt Poland’s abortion laws and outlaw the practice in most cases, but that won’t happen anytime soon. Roe v. Wade prevents even individual states from doing much to restrict the practice and has for nearly 50 years.
While Democrats may never agree to ban abortion, they can learn from Yang’s presidential campaign. Although Yang ran as a pro-choice candidate, his presidential campaign platform included the ways he wanted to cut the abortion rate. In his case, it was by expanding access to contraceptives and providing women with financial support, which largely meant a $1,000-per-month universal basic income for adults in the U.S.
Democrats would not have to copy Yang’s playbook verbatim to reduce the abortion rate. However, they could emphasize how Title X funding for family planning clinics reduces unintended pregnancies, which reduces the abortion rate. Plus, Title X funding saves taxpayers money since they spend less on welfare as a result.
Even something such as the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act, despite its problems, was a Democratic plan that helped reduce the abortion rate. Plus, there are Democrats and Republicans who want to expand access to birth control and make it available over the counter, another way to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortion.
Perhaps a child allowance could be a part of the abortion reduction plan. It would fit because the most common reasons women have abortions are financial, according to BMC Women’s Health. Democrats could tout it in their abortion reduction plan along with expanded healthcare access, paid family leave, baby bonuses, making day care more affordable, and lowering the cost of higher education because student loans can cause economic hardship. Not to mention, there are issues such as expanding safe haven laws, in which both sides should support the same approaches without much disagreement.
Just because people have abortions doesn’t mean that pro-choice advocates, whether Democrats or Republicans, can’t acknowledge how sad and unfortunate it is that women end their unborn babies’ lives. The U.S. should respect people at all stages of life. If Democrats can help reduce the number of abortions that take place, that should be a winning campaign strategy for them, instead of appealing only to the pro-abortion fringes.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other media outlets.
