Democrats don't need to be afraid of antiabortion liberals
("Seek first to understand, and then to be understood." - Stephen R. Covey)Source: Washington Post, by Kristen Day, Executive Director, Democrats for Life of America
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This attention to local values and interests was the crux of Howard Deans 50 state strategy, which earned the party victories across the country in 2006 and 2008. As Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez put it back in April: In order to execute a 50-state strategy, we need to understand whats going on in all 50 states, and attract candidates who are consistent with their messages but perhaps not on 100 percent of the issues. If you demand fealty on every single issue, then its a challenge.
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Signed into law along with the Affordable Care Act were several legislation proposals crafted by Democrats for Life of America called the Pregnant Women Support Act. We intended our proposals to reduce abortion by getting rid of many of the forces that push women toward abortion in the first place. We moved to eliminate pregnancy as a pre-existing condition for insurers, require State Child Health Insurance programs to cover mothers, fully and federally fund WIC and provide federal funding for day care. Likewise, when Senate Republicans moved last year to institute a 20-week ban on abortion, we at Democrats for Life of America urged legislators to include a paid family leave package along with the bill, with the aim of reducing financial burdens on pregnant women and their families. And in 2012, antiabortion Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) introduced the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a law that would ensure that pregnant women receive reasonable adjustments on the job and that they dont face retribution for asking to be accommodated.
In other words, one of the factors that best distinguishes Democrats who oppose abortion from Republicans who do is the very fact that Democrats are cognizant of the pressures that finances and the economy can place on a persons life, and we are invested in freeing people from them to the greatest degree possible.
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The abortion debate is polarized and often extremely bitter. Its easy to imagine that there really are only two sides: yours and the other guys. But Americans views on abortion are mostly in the gray area between always legal and never legal, and each persons moral perspective will be nuanced by his or her own values and experiences. When Luján says that Democratic candidates who run for office in districts with strong antiabortion leanings deserve funding from the party, he isnt saying that the party is going to fund candidates whose positions are tantamount to those of Republicans. Hes rightly observing that Democrats real, bona-fide Democrats do have a range of views on abortion, and to win as many elections as possible, the party has to recognize that.
Read it all at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/03/democrats-dont-need-to-be-afraid-of-antiabortion-liberals/?utm_term=.6618df3783f8#comments
Me.
(35,454 posts)Seriously? Run for the hills is what I say.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)"Kristen Days editorial was about politics, and this thread would benefit by staying on politics. Simply to attack the messenger or get into a moral argument is beside the point. We arent trying to change each others personal views. The Democratic Party has within it large numbers of pro-life people, even after the virulent purges of recent years. This is a political reality. These people represent at least one leg (and sometimes two) of the Democratic electorate. The effort to force them out has shrunk the party, and has had terrible optics, where leaders who preach tolerance and diversity appear hypocritical. Both parties have this problem, where strident, uncompromising views are dominant, and most actual people have more nuanced positions and a preference for compromise. The party that reclaims the center first will grow the fastest. Open the big tent."
Me.
(35,454 posts)Democrats for Life: Defund Planned Parenthood
Democrats For Life of America (DFLA) urges Congress to reallocate federal funding for women's health services from Planned Parenthood to Community Health Centers (CHCs), which are more accessible and that do more expansive preventative care, including mammograms. Planned Parenthood, a profitable $1.2 billion corporation, is under investigation for selling body parts, including hearts, lungs and livers, of aborted children. "Whether or not Planned Parenthood is engaging in an illegal selling of body parts, the videos highlight what Americans have too long been asked to ignore the humanity of the unborn and that abortion ends a life," said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats For Life of America.
https://www.charismanews.com/politics/press-releases/51442-democrats-for-life-defund-planned-parenthood
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)With link!
"Antiabortion Liberals" in title!
I believe no 'introduction' necessary.
The opinion is, if we want to compete in 50 states as seems to be the consensus, we must accommodate the local electorate if we are to compete.
My opinion is that if we don't accommodate the local electorate, why bother with a 50 state strategy?
We had two distinct candidates last presidential election - with an open seat on the Supreme Court at stake, with the legality of abortion on the line!
Toss out the results from the liberal bastion of California, and the other 49 states chose Trump by popular vote AND Electoral College.
No doubt about it - we need a Bigger Tent!
Me.
(35,454 posts)That in this big, big country of ours the choice is always limited, not a good pro-life candidate to be found anywhere, certainly not in a local electorate, even in a country where 70% believe abortion should be legal, so women will just have to suspend their rights to the greater good and jump behind say... Gov. Justice. Oh right, he like others, use the Dem party for their own purposes and then spits on them when it counts. And at the same time, 3 million more votes all went to 45 so he won both the popular vote and the college. And don't kid yourself re: Ms. Day, she is virulent in her beliefs and her agenda is, by her own words, to change the party into an anti-choice party.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)From the voting record, it looks like that 48% live pretty close to each other!
That idea of the "legality" of abortion you cite includes JUST rape, incest and life of the mother.
Pro-choice Democrats run for office in Red State districts all the time. They just don't win.
Why would anyone run where they cannot win?
Me.
(35,454 posts)Specifically white protestant and would never vote for a Dem in the first place.
As we approach the 44th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, more Americans than ever before oppose overturning it a clear rebuttal of President-elect Trumps anti-Roe position.
Recent research from the Pew Research Center indicates that 69 percent of Americans or 7 in 10 say Roe v. Wade should not be completely overturned. This represents a 6-point increase in the number of individuals who expressed this sentiment just a few years ago.
Democrats are more likely to support Roe v. Wade than their Republican counterparts: 84 percent of Democrats say the Supreme Court should not completely overturn Roe (an increase of 9 percentage points from 2013), compared to 53 percent still a narrow majority of Republicans.
https://thinkprogress.org/pro-choice-america-majority-d8963029ae45
Rev. Sharpton was on MJ this morning talking about how Dems don't dance with the ones who brought them but are always going after the ones who don't even like them. And you know, we've held both houses of Congress, together and separately and we didn't have to give away our rights or appease others to do so. So why must we do so now.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)With Blue Dogs, Third Way and Dixiecrats, George Wallace Democrats - and when abortion was illegal across the land!
We all have our personal line-in-the-sand issues.
If we don't think bigger - we'll all make the Democratic Party smaller.
Me.
(35,454 posts)And wanting one's rights is not thinking smaller
LakeArenal
(28,863 posts)Although I have been told before on DU that it is not open.
demmiblue
(36,911 posts)yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)you definitely will never VOTE for a forced-birther.
demmiblue
(36,911 posts)Me.
(35,454 posts)With efforts to limit or end a women's right to choose one way or the other. Continued legislation to that end is enacted to this very day and if it comes to a vote those you put in office can affect the vote one way or the other. As to the SC. they don't have a say on who gains an office, usually.
wryter2000
(46,125 posts)Has said he won't support the DCCC if they court antichoice candidates. I'm on my Kindle and can't supply a link, but he was quoted in an OP yesterday. So much for using him as a reference.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)was to an anti-abortion Democrat, Bobby Bright. We took a Republican district.
He took THAT issue off the table, and won a 50/50 decision by 1,766 votes (0.6%).
He voted for Nancy Pelosi to be Speaker of the House.
We all know what happened to the House in 2010. And ever since.
Let's do what we have to do to get it back in 2018 - in red districts, in red states.
wryter2000
(46,125 posts)And next time let's throw LGBT and PoC under the bus.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Bobby Bright did just that! He voted against every proposal by President Obama, including the Matthew Shepard Act.
And Nancy Pelosi gave him cover!
She knew whatever he did to get re-elected was necessary to sustain the Democratic majority!
In the end, the only thing he did "wrong" was vote for Nancy Pelosi - and his opponent Martha Roby in 2010 nailed him on it!
alarimer
(16,245 posts)Maybe more centrists. In some places, that's probably okay and might be all they can get.
MosheFeingold
(3,051 posts)It all hinges on "when does life begin"?
If you think it is at conception, implantation, somewhere along the line of gestation, birth, first breath (the old English common law belief), a day, a year after birth (which is the belief in many countries, or was, for a long time, due to child mortality), etc.
Well, at that point in time (whatever it is), you have a life, with its own Constitutional Rights (which obviously must be balanced against the others it affects -- in this case, mainly the Mother's Constitutional Rights).
With Roe v. Wade, and the advance of medical science, the beginning of life has been judicially determined to be "somewhere along the course of gestation" with various cases trying to figure that line out.
So, long way of saying, while I may disagree with anti-abortion people, reasonable minds can differ as to when life begins. I won't say someone is a bigot or hater-of-women simply because they draw the line-of-when-life-begins different than I do. It's a hard scientific, philosophic, and religious question.
And, while there ARE plenty of misogynists who are anti-abortion (and that is their motivation), there are also plenty of deeply caring people who draw the line-of-life differently than I do.
Open minds, people. We're supposed to be liberal.
Lucky Luciano
(11,267 posts)BlueMTexpat
(15,374 posts)BlueMTexpat
(15,374 posts)"antiabortion liberals" is an oxymoron.
Period.
The correct term is "anti-choice zealots."