The Democratic presidential primary so far has revealed the candidates’ positions on abortion are extreme, to put it mildly. If these Democrats have their sights set on the Oval Office, they would be smart to moderate their stance on the issue, because they are quite far from public opinion.
Just last week, both Sen. Bernie Sanders and Mayor Pete Buttigieg expressed shockingly extreme views on abortion — views that don’t match up with the vast majority of the American public.
During a CNN climate change town hall, Sanders explained that the U.S. should fund abortion for poor women in third world countries when asked if population control was part of his solution for climate change. The optics of white and wealthy Sanders advocating for fewer births in primarily black and brown poor countries is painful.
During a radio interview, Buttigieg pushed abortion without limits, including up until birth (at least), when he suggested that human life may begin only when a baby takes her first breath, even referencing parts of the Bible for justification. “There’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath,” he said. “Even that is something that we can interpret differently…most Americans can get on board with the idea of, ‘I might draw the line here. You might draw the line there.’ The most important thing is the person who should be drawing the line is the woman making the decision.”
Then there’s front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden, who reversed course on federal funding for abortion after caving to the pro-abortion lobby. “We would never support someone who supported Hyde, period,” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue told the New York Times.
Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg and frankly all the Democratic candidates should reevaluate their stance on abortion if they hope to win the general election.
“By a double-digit margin, a majority of all Americans oppose any taxpayer funding of abortion (54% to 39%),” reads the eleventh annual Marist Poll survey on the issue. Even more (75%), Americans don’t want to fund overseas abortion—the kind Sanders would export to developing nations to keep the population down. That type of funding was recently stopped as part of the reinstituted Reagan-era Mexico City policy. “Opposition to [funding abortion abroad] includes most Republicans (94%) and independents (80%) and a majority of Democrats (56%).”
The Democratic party platform went off the rails at least as far back as 1992 when it suggested support for taxpayer-funded abortion. “Democrats stand behind the right of every woman to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of ability to pay,” reads the 1992 party platform. The party platform from 1996 and 2000 read the same.
The 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Democratic party platforms contain similar language on taxpayer funding for abortion. Noticeably different, however, is the language in 2016 party platform, which goes to far as to specifically condemn defunding the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. It also condemns other attempts to disentangle taxpayer dollars from abortion services.
“We will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers, which provide critical health services to millions of people. We will continue to oppose—and seek to overturn—federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including repealing the Hyde Amendment,” reads the 2016 party platform.
Democratic Party leaders are out of touch with the majority of Americans, who oppose federal funding for abortion; it does not seem to matter to them that Americans —Republican, independent and Democrat alike — don’t support federal funding of abortion overseas. And most Americans, even among those who would call themselves pro-choice on abortion, know that it’s wrong to abort a 7 lb. baby who happens to be on the other side of the birth canal.
If the Democrats continue to reject commonsense policies regarding abortion, their party risks once again alienating more moderate voters, both young and old. That makes it all the more likely that President Trump will be elected next November to serve a second term.
Jeanne Mancini is president of the March for Life.
