Editorials
COMMONWEAL Heart & soul By some estimates 500,000 or more protesters gathered on the Washington Mall before the Capitol on April 5 to demonstrate their support for unrestricted access to...
...A similar discrepancy exists between the marchers and most Americans on requiring spousal permission for an abortion...
...The April demonstration was meant to give a graphic reminder of the electoral strength of prochoice forces...
...Pennsylvania's abortion law, if upheld by the Court, will require that women give informed consent to the procedure...
...Between husband and wife...
...Nine out of ten protesters also opposed the idea of parental notification for teen-agers seeking abortions...
...and would require that minors have the consent of at least one parent (with reasonable exceptions) and that a wife notify her husband (with similar exceptions...
...Pragmatic party theorists argue that economic misery, not homilies on family values, will open the doors of the White House to the Democrats again...
...Only 18 percent of Americans think such adolescent autonomy good social policy...
...Casey used tough words in assessing the damage the Democrats have inflicted on themselves by making abortion on demand a litmus test for any candidate seeking the party's presidential nomination...
...A consensus that said abortion was a crime...
...For many Americans, Casey says, Roe v. Wade has come to symbolize a "host of anti-family policies...
...Among Americans as a whole, only one-third support such a position...
...An attack that short-circuited a consensus [on abortion] that had already formed among most of the states...
...In the deafening rhetoric of the recent Washington march, few party leaders are prepared to listen to Casey's warnings...
...As long as the party excludes "middling positions" and the "nuances of moral commitment" felt by those uneasy with Roe, it sends a message of intolerance, even arrogance, while depriving itself of the coalition-building skills it needs...
...Let me introduce myself...
...But coming from the popular governor of a major industrial state, this critique of the Democratic party needs to be heard...
...Such conventional wisdom should be less secure, however, after the drubbing Democrats have taken on "value issues" since the advent of Ronald Reagan...
...I have a uterus and I vote," read signs carried by protesters...
...This demographic profile translated into predictably libertarian views on abortion, with nine out of ten marchers supporting abortion as a form of birth control for women who do not want another child...
...Casey is blunt: if the Democrats' position on abortion isn't qualified, "the same special interests [will] lead the misguided Democratic party right off the same cliff...
...COMMONWEAL Heart & soul By some estimates 500,000 or more protesters gathered on the Washington Mall before the Capitol on April 5 to demonstrate their support for unrestricted access to abortion...
...In brief: those attending the rally were significantly younger, more liberal, more Democratic, better educated, whiter, (and therefore presumably wealthier), and of course more female than the nation as a whole...
...Parent and child...
...Heart and soul—that's what presidential elections are all about...
...Yet abortion-rights activists, and the Democratic party that rushes to embrace them, reject this position out of hand, and will tolerate no restrictions whatever...
...As Casey and many other Democrats realize, the political reality—and the votes—lie somewhere in the middle...
...That's when people are moved more by the candidate's values than the candidate's programs...
...These are strong words, and perhaps they run the risk of oversimplifying the genuine conflict many Americans—including both prochoice and prolife advocates of both genders—feel about this complex issue and the deeper ambivalence they might have about recriminalizing abortion nearly twenty years after Roe...
...I'm Casey...
...It may have been the largest mass rally in Washington's history...
...More important, what protection the law extends to the unborn lies at the nexus of social and moral questions upon which the national Democratic party notoriously continues to flounder...
...4: 8 May 1992 Commonweal...
...The Post's findings were not exactly news but merely confirmed, in a focused way, what polls routinely show: most Americans are not comfortable with abortion on demand, and want the practice legally discouraged...
...Sociologist James Davison Hunter (Culture Wars, Basic Books) has noted—and the fervor of the Washington march exemplified— that the public discourse on abortion is "more polarized than the American public itself....Middling positions and the nuances of moral commitment, then, get played into the grid of opposing rhetorical extremes...
...He was re-elected by more than a million votes over a pro-abortion Republican in 1990, and was instrumental in championing his protégé, Harris Wofford—who largely shared Casey's views on abortion—to an upset victory over former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh for a Senate seat last fall...
...Despite his status as a self-described "prolife Democrat," Casey has shown a remarkable ability to get Pennsylvanians with and without uteruses to vote for him...
...On the Thursday before the Washington march, Pennsylvania's Democratic Governor Robert P. Casey delivered a little-remarked-upon address at the Notre Dame Law School...
...Indeed, a revealing poll of the abortion-rights marchers, reported by Richard Morin, the Washington Post's director of polling (Washington Post National Weekly Edition, April 13-19), essentially confirmed Casey's analysis of the gulf that separates the rigid prochoice position from the beliefs and values of most Americans...
...The special interests controlling the party are Commonweal 8 May 1992: 3 absolutely intolerant of any view on abortion other than their own extreme view," he argued...
...Elections are increasingly decided by independent swing voters, whose confidence is often won on issues as far removed from their pocketbooks as the prolife agenda Governor Casey speaks of so passionately...
...You may have heard of the case that is before the Supreme Court called Planned Parenthood v. Casey," the governor said...
...In adopting such a one-sided view, Casey argues, the Democrats fatally alienate a potential majority of voters who would naturally rally to the party's progressive economic and social message...
...it would impose a twenty-four-hour waiting period...
...Organized by the National Abortion Rights Action League, the National Organization of Women, and other abortion-rights groups, the protest received the vocal support of both remaining candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, Governor Bill Clinton and former Governor Edmund "Jerry" Brown...
...They [middle-class Democrats] saw Roe as a direct frontal attack on traditional family relationships," Casey says...
...We must fight for life," Casey said at Notre Dame, "with the same passion that Democrats throughout history have fought for liberty...
...In this context, the April 5 rally was a mirage, indicating only that the Democratic leadership still hasn't the slightest inkling of how destructive advocacy of the Roe precedent is, or of how most Americans want to see some sort of workable compromise...
...Abortion-rights activists, the vast majority of whom identify with the Democratic party, are concerned that the Supreme Court may weaken or overturn Roe v. Wade after hearing a case (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) contesting the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania law that imposes modest restrictions on abortion...
...Democrats might consider how relative the appeal to economic insecurity can be in the context of the deeper social and cultural values voters seek to affirm in national elections...
...Indeed, NARAL and other groups now want Congress to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, thereby translating Roe's deregulation of abortion into statutory law and removing it from the reach of state legislatures ("'Roe' redux," Commonweal, March 13...
...Clearly, in endorsing abortion on demand the Democratic party has identified itself with one extreme—and thus provided the Republicans with plenty of ammunition for portraying Democrats as elitists beholden to unrepresentative special interests...
Vol. 119 • May 1992 • No. 9
