The most inviolable policy position on the American Left today is support for legal abortion and Planned Parenthood. Remember the negotiations over the government shutdown last Spring, when Democrats gave in on everything — almost. The New York Times reported:
Given how intimately their fundraising network is tied to Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion lobby, this is no surprise. But you see the power of this Democratic abortion absolutism in all sorts of places — even the quixotic 2004 presidential race of Dennis Kucinich.
I’m revisiting this now because on Tuesday Kucinich lost the Democratic primary for his House seat. Here’s his story on abortion:
Kucinich, as a state legislator was fully pro-life. As a congressman, he was totally pro-life. Then he started running for president, and The Nation ran a brief article headlined “Regressive Progressive.” Katha Pollitt wrote “In his two terms in Congress, he has quietly amassed an anti-choice voting record of Henry Hyde-like proportions.”
And guess what happened that very month? Kucinich did an about face. I wrote about it at the time:
In May, 2001, Kucinich again voted against funding International Planned Parenthood. Two months later he voted to block federal funding of prison abortions. On the cloning ban, the congressman voted the straight pro-life line, supporting the bill and opposing his party’s efforts to soften the ban.
On September 25, 2001, Kucinich helped kill a measure by California Democrat Loretta Sanchez that would have allowed for federal funding of abortions in overseas U.S. military bases.
But then something happened.
In May, 2002, Congresswoman Sanchez pushed the same measure to the floor. Again, it narrowly failed. But this time, Kucinich voted to allow tax dollars for soldiers’ abortions.
Two months later, Republicans pushed the partial-birth-abortion ban to the floor (Clinton had repeatedly vetoed it). Kucinich again abandoned his earlier stance and voted “yes” on an amendment that would allow the procedure to protect the “health” of the mother — an exception that makes the ban entirely ineffective.
Then, when the final vote came to pass this bill-the same bill he had supported every time before — Kucinich abstained. He voted “present,” which is a conspicuous way to express that one neither supports nor opposes the bill.
Then, just weeks ago, Kucinich again voted “present” on the “Abortion Non-Discrimination Act,” which would have prevented governments at various levels from forcing private hospitals or clinics to perform abortions or health plans to cover an abortion.
