Back to Exponent Menu Printer Friendly Page   EDITORIAL Friday, December 17, 2004 Democrats’ consideration of modified abortion stance welcome As 2004 winds down, most of us are more than glad to put the recent divisive presidential election behind us and move on. The months of endless campaign advertisements and the emphasis on negativity on both sides made it a particularly difficult election year to stomach, no matter which horse you backed in the race. But as the post-election post mortems filter in, numerous newspaper columns and television interviews have dealt with the subject of what the Democratic Party can do and must do if it wishes to return to the Oval Office. It is a serious question worth serious thought, given the millions of Americans who back Democratic candidates and who believe that a Democrat in the White House will make for a better America. In the midst of such analysis, one article on MSNBC’s website caught our attention. Some prominent Democrats, it suggested, are now beginning to say in public what some of their rank-and-file have been saying in private for some time: this party cannot win at the national level without moderating its stance on the highly divisive issue of abortion. No less a figure than Sen. John Kerry brought this to the attention of a recent Democratic think tank, MSNBC reported, drawing audible gasps from rabid pro-abortion leaders at the gathering. Kerry went so far as to suggest that leaders should “welcome pro-life candidates” into the Democratic Party, a notion which Democratic thinkers hope will have two effects: gaining much-needed pro-life voters, and placating conservatives, thus keeping abortion legal for the indefinite future. It is difficult to say precisely how much Kerry’s views on abortion hurt him with Catholic voters, a segment of the electorate he lost by 55-45 percent. But surely it did not help. In particular, his repeated votes against banning “Partial Birth Abortion” – a procedure so hideous that even the late liberal Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a staunch supporter of abortion rights, once called it “infanticide” – may well have cost him hundreds of thousands of votes among Catholics who were less than delighted with President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, but displeased with Kerry’s refusal to take a stand against even this most gruesome of abortion procedures. Senator Kerry now apparently thinks he paid a price, too, for MSNBC reports that he told the think tank “we need to make people realize that Democrats don’t like abortion” even when they support it. Even if the most hardline abortion-rights supporters within his party do not want to hear it, Kerry is right to point out that a good many mainstream Americans who would ordinarily vote for the Democratic candidate find themselves struggling to do so – or are simply unable to do so – because of the party’s extreme views on life in the womb. While there is no question where pro-life supporters in both parties stand on this issue, many others in America are growing more uneasy with unrestricted abortion, especially in the third trimester. Democratic thinkers are now suggesting a “Third Way” in which their candidates could move toward the center on these kinds of cultural issues. As the MSNBC article notes, “some Democrats now favor embracing common sense restrictions as a step toward ultimately preserving that basic right” of abortion. Some would favor pushing a bill to ban third trimester abortions, though with “broad exceptions for the life and health of the mother.” While such moves would only be a small step in the right direction toward ultimately banning the evil of abortion from our midst, they do demonstrate that the clear scientific evidence of life beginning well before birth, together with the growing weight of public opinion, are moving the debate more and more in favor of life. With each passing day, the multi-billion-dollar abortion industry grows closer to collapsing of its own pervasive evil. If some Democrats have begun to realize that they need to move away from a radical “pro-choice” stance in order for their party to seriously contend again for the White House, so much the better. Their motives might be more political than pure at this point, but their willingness to rethink their position and put some distance between themselves and the radical abortion supporters within their party is welcome news, indeed — both for rank-and-file pro-life Democrats and for those in the womb who may never get to vote. — Lou Jacquet/Editor   Back to Exponent Menu Printer Friendly Page   Other Articles of 2004   Democrats’ consideration of modified abortion stance welcome   Coach’s dismissal gives some insight into America’s psyche   Arafat’s death an opening, but Middle East peace remains elusive   The presidential campaign: ‘A pox on both their houses’?   150,000 and more put aside scandals, embrace beacon of hope   When Catholic schools close, parents must shoulder some of the blame   Jews, Christians respect one another across great divide of faith   Latest ‘civil war’ pits defenders of marriage against courts   Civility in short supply as nation faces a barroom brawl   Catholic publications ‘speak truth to power’ nationwide, up north   Past Articles From 2003