The loneliness of the anti-abortion Democrat

Kristen Day is not making progress. The executive director of Democrats for Life of America, she manned a booth at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which features caucus meetings, presentations and lots of activists offering their wares to Democrats in Philadelphia for the big party convention.

Democrats strolled by, including more than a handful wearing pink Planned Parenthood Tshirts. Few stopped at Day’s table, which featured a poster promoting paid parental leave, a higher minimum wage and “Medicare for all” — but no mention of abortion.

“We’re trying to appeal to Democrats, and we want them to talk to us,” she explained.

“Safe, legal and rare” was the abortion-rights mantra of Bill Clinton in the 1990s. In her 2008 presidential run, Hillary Clinton said abortion should be “safe, legal and rare, and by rare, I mean rare.” Abortion “should not in any way be diminished as a moral issue,” she added.

But abortion is increasingly deemed a health-care issue by Democratic leaders, not a moral issue. The 2016 party platform makes no mention of “rare,” and Clinton herself seems to have dropped the word from her political lexicon. Meanwhile, the number of pro-life Democrats in Congress has dwindled to a handful. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, whom Clinton selected to be her vice presidential nominee, has suggested that he has personal qualms about abortion while compiling a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood.

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the party’s prochoice components have consolidated power. There is little Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives to speak to volunteers at a Democratic party organizing event in Charlotte, N.C., Monday. In her 2008 presidential run, Clinton said abortion should be “safe, legal and rare, and by rare, I mean rare.” The 2016 party platform makes no mention of “rare,” and Clinton herself seems to have dropped the word from her political lexicon. in the polls to support a more liberal posture on the issue. Since Gallup began tracking abortion in the 1970s, the main default position of Americans has been support for abortion “only under certain circumstances.”

According to a 2014 Pew Research survey, millennials hold similarly hedged views. In a 2015 CNN poll, Democrats’ views on abortion ranged across: “legal under any circumstances” (48 percent), “legal under most circumstances” (19 percent), “legal under certain circumstances” (22 percent) and “illegal in all circumstances” (9 percent).

Despite the diversity of opinion, there is nonetheless a clear party line. “When we try to find Democratic fundraisers to help us raise money,” Day said, “they say, ‘Oh, we don’t want to touch that.’”

In 1972, before abortion became a polarized partisan issue, more Republicans than Democrats supported legal abortion, according to Gallup. “It makes more sense for Republicans to be the pro-choice party and the Democrats to be the pro-life party,” Day said, since Republicans object to government interference and Democrats are more inclined to protect the vulnerable. But that’s not a view with much traction in American politics.

Abortion politics is unforgiving terrain. “Two pro-lifers contacted me on Facebook,” Day said. “One said I was going to hell. The other said the Democratic Party is evil.”

Democratic critics can be similarly unkind. “One Democratic friend said she was ashamed I was a Democrat,” Day said. “The other said I’m un-American because I don’t support taxpayer-funded abortions. You gotta have tough skin for this job.”

Day, a 47-year-old former Capitol Hill aide, isn’t winning this battle, but she hasn’t lost it completely. The new platform doesn’t endorse “safe, legal and rare,” which carried an implicit moral judgment against abortion and a desire to curtail it. Democratic platforms haven’t included the word “rare” in the abortion plank since 2004. But it still implies a desire for fewer abortions.

“We recognize that quality, affordable comprehensive health care, evidence-based sex education, and a full range of family planning services help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.”

Reducing the need for abortions, which echoes language from the 2008 platform, is at least a backhand acknowledgment that abortion remains, in Clinton’s apparently discarded locution, a “moral issue.” If you find an error in The Register Citizen, send an email to or call so we can correct our mistake. We are committed to correcting all errors or making clarifications that come to our attention, and encourage readers, story sources and the community at-large to point them out to us. Send an email to factcheck@registercitizen.com and let us know if there is more to add or something to correct in one of our stories. Also see our fact check blog http://registercitizenfactcheck. blogspot.com for some of our clarifications, corrections and additions to stories. You can report errors anonymously, or provide an email and/or other contact information so that we can confirm receipt and/or action on the matter, and ask you to clarify if necessary. We can’t guarantee a mistake-free newspaper and website, but we can pledge to be transparent about how we deal with and correct mistakes. Letters to the Editor: Email editor@registercitizen.com or mail to Letters to the Editor, The Register Citizen, 59 Field St., Torrington, CT 06790; ATT: Letter to the Editor. Rules for getting published: Please include your address and a daytime phone number for verification purposes only. Please limit your letters to 300 words per Letter to the Editor and one letter every fifteen days. We reserve the right to edit for length, grammar, spelling and objectionable content. Talk with us online: Find us at Facebook.com/registercitizen and twitter.com/registercitizen. For the latest local coverage, including breaking news, slideshows, videos, polls and more, visit www.registercitizen.com. Check out our blogs at www. registercitizen.com/blogs/opinion.