PRO-LIFE DEMOCRATS
BARNES, FRED
PRO-LIFE DEMOCRATS by Fred Barnes Chicago NATIONAL CHAIRMAN DONALD FOWLER says Democrats “respect the right of people who disagree with us” on abortion. They can still be “good Democrats.”...
...On bills with abortion-related amendments, they often vote against the party position...
...It doesn’t mention abortion at all...
...Pro-lifers—roughly one-fi fth of House Democrats— contacted Leon Panetta, President Clinton’s chief of staff, and other White House aides in hopes of talking about Clinton’s opposition to the ban on partialbirth abortion...
...What’s clear from this episode is that pro-life House Democrats are a timid lot...
...Well, how about prodding Democratic offi cials to let Casey address the convention...
...To get this small, nebulous concession, Hall, Poshard, Stupak, and others had to lobby both the White House and the Democratic National Committee...
...And it won’t help Clinton mollify pro-life Democratic voters, many of them ethnic Catholics, in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois...
...Neither Clinton nor any aide responded...
...The environment was so unfriendly that, while pro-choice Democrats defended their position inside the United Center, pro-life Democrats had to meet miles away at the Field Museum...
...Casey had a “problem,” says Poshard...
...He wanted to speak on abortion, not simply to refer to the subject in passing as Hall did...
...Couldn’t do that, say the Democratic pro-lifers...
...It says only that the party “respects the individual conscience of each American on this diffi cult issue...
...Glenn Poshard of Illinois insists pro-life Democrats like himself are routinely punished by House leaders because of anti-abortion votes...
...Michelman didn’t have to lobby, fi ght, or raise a ruckus to be invited to the podium, either...
...Only Stupak addressed the issue frontally...
...Mine...
...Rep...
...She addressed the convention solely on abortion —from the pro-choice side...
...Despite the party’s putative tolerance, Casey called the convention “a very hostile environment...
...That’s the offi cial position of the party, anyway...
...Some were delegates...
...Might some of these Democrats quit the party over abortion...
...He was famously barred from the podium in New York in 1992...
...Bart Stupak of Michigan says anti-abortion Democrats are subjected to slurs and snide remarks by pro-choice colleagues...
...Now, with a conscience clause on abortion newly added to the platform, “the Democratic party is indeed the party of true inclusion...
...He was interested...
...We didn’t want to get into a big fi ght,” says Stupak...
...We’d come up on the short end of the vote...
...As a result, their party loyalty scores are lower, and they’re denied committee assignments and other privileges...
...Casey sees the new language differently...
...Those are the battleground states and that’s the battleground constituency...
...The enormity of 1.5 million lives’ being destroyed every year cannot be overlooked, cannot be forgotten,” he said...
...How about fi ghting to make the platform abortion-neutral...
...Fowler took the three to the platform committee...
...But the new platform language doesn’t mention that many Democrats are opposed to abortion...
...But it was mine alone to make...
...It’s an acknowledgement we’re an integral part of the party...
...And it certainly doesn’t include the phrase “partial-birth abortion,” the third-trimester abortion procedure opposed by three-quarters of Americans...
...Oh, gosh, no,” answers Poshard...
...This occurred, for example, after they voted to bar taxpayer-funded abortion and to block partial-birth abortions, according to Stupak...
...But this year is different...
...It’s a joke,” he says...
...That could be very important, if not determinative...
...Even Casey is leery of joining the GOP: “There are just a lot of things on the Republican side I just don’t like...
...Clinton aides didn’t call back...
...They drafted three separate statements, hoping one would be acceptable...
...Yet they act as if they’ve forced a major change in direction for the party...
...Perish the thought...
...But here’s what really happens: • Rep...
...He and other pro-life Democrats “have felt left out by our party’s position on abortion for many years, Hall said...
...She described an abortion —her own...
...It’s an acknowledgement we exist,” says Stupak...
...Former Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey, the party’s leading pro-lifer, was contacted by the White House through an intermediary about possibly addressing the Chicago convention...
...And one, Rep...
...That didn’t stop Casey from coming to Chicago, where he addressed a rally and gave TV and radio interviews...
...Pro-life voters “won’t be fooled by the tolerance language...
...There, several of the speakers talked more about civility and party unity than abortion...
...If Bob Dole and Jack Kemp stress Clinton’s partialbirth abortion veto, the president may lose 2 or 3 percent of the vote on that issue alone, says Casey...
...Tony Hall of Ohio, was permitted to utter several prolife sentences in a brief speech on the second night of the convention...
...For me, it was a diffi cult choice,” Michelman said...
...Even so, he said: “I’d rather be in the convention hall than outside...
...On August 16, he wrote to the president asking to speak and “give integrity to the tolerance pledge in the Democratic platform...
...In other words, he wanted to do what Kate Michelman of the National Abortion Rights Action League did...
...The president vetoed the ban...
...Unlike Casey, anti-abortion House members got inside the hall...
...The result was “a middle ground of the things we gave them,” says Poshard...
...Poshard says it is “a step in the right direction...
...There’s no group in Congress that suffers more than pro-life Democrats,” Poshard says...
Vol. 1 • September 1996 • No. 50
