Why is the Democratic Party’s Tent Big Enough for Dick Cheney But Not Pro-Lifers?
In a reversal, Democratic leadership won’t even meet with pro-life Democrats. What’s going on?
During August’s Democratic presidential convention, Planned Parenthood earned national headlines for setting up a mobile health clinic to offer vasectomies and abortion pills for convention goers.
But while Planned Parenthood was giving people a way to avoid becoming parents, a different group was helping those who want to have their children.
"We did a diaper drive,” explained Kristen Day, the group’s executive director, “and it was the most rewarding thing that I’ve done in a while because we set out a goal to raise $1,000. We raised $7,000, and we gave diapers all over Chicago.”
They rented a U-Haul and visited neighborhoods across the city to support them in their parenting needs: they stopped by migrant communities, food banks, low-income preschools, and pregnancy centers.
“It was just amazing, you’re doing direct action to help people,” Day explained. “That’s so much more consistent with Democratic values than offering abortion and no follow-up — you know, no ultrasound to see if it’s an ectopic pregnancy, no care about that woman’s health and just giving her a pill and telling her to self-abort.”
As the quote above illustrates, Day is a Democrat. She’s the executive director of Democrats for Life of America. She has spent her life as a Democrat, eventually rising to the position of Chief of Staff for former Michigan Democratic Congressman Jim Barcia.
While she was on Capitol Hill, she worked closely with pro-life groups on pro-life legislation. In those days, there were dozens of Democrats in Congress who supported generally pro-life positions.
Eventually, Day moved from the Hill to Democrats for Life, working to support Democratic elected officials who oppose abortion.
A deteriorating relationship
But in recent years, that’s become a much lonelier space to find yourself in.
While the Democrats have been the more pro-choice party for decades, they once had a sizable pro-life minority. In 2010, about a quarter of the House Democratic caucus — dozens of lawmakers — identified as generally anti-abortion. Today, there is just one: Texas Democratic Henry Cuellar.
To be clear, the percentage of self-identified Democrats among the public who identify as pro-life has fallen at the same time. Gallup’s latest polling suggests around 12 percent of Democrats identify as “pro-life” (although it’s worth noting that these labels don’t perfectly capture the nuances of people’s positions).
This means that Day and her organization are occupying a much smaller space in the political spectrum. Gone are the days when the leaders of the party, like Bill Clinton, campaigned on abortion being “safe, legal, and rare.”
Yet the Democratic Party had, until very recently, given pro-lifers a place in their large tent.
“Whenever a new party chair was elected, we would go and meet. We’d have elected pro-life Democrats flying in and meet with the new chairman and just remind the new chair that it’s important to include these voices in the party,” Day noted.
That changed with the election of Jaime Harrison as DNC chair.
“It just continued to deteriorate to the point of where we are right now, where the party chair…actually refused to meet with elected pro-life Democrats or have any communication with pro-life Democrats at all,” she said.
A “Whole Life” approach
The cold shoulder from party leadership hasn’t stopped Day and her group from engaging, where they can, with the party.
Democrats for Life backs what it calls “Whole Life” legislation. One of the most common liberal quips against pro-lifers is that they only support life until a child is born — then that child’s life is up to the whims of the free market.
But you can’t lob that criticism at Democrats for Life. The group has been active in campaigning for additional support for families — through policies like the expanded Child Tax Credit.
They were also instrumental in getting the Affordable Care Act to include the Pregnant Woman Support Act, a package of policies designed to help reduce abortions. Democrats for Life also strongly opposes the death penalty.
“We care about the baby — people — throughout life,” Day explained.
A dwindling number of Whole Life Democrats
In a party where access to abortion is increasingly synonymous with health care access more broadly, the number of “Whole Life” lawmakers is dwindling.
In 2020, Democrats for Life backed around 100 candidates; this cycle, Day said, they would estimate that there are closer to 50 pro-life Democratic elected officials across the country.
One problem is that while the Democrats keep pushing them away, the Republicans are happy to have more pro-life lawmakers.
Day pointed to the example of AJ Oliver in New Jersey. Oliver was the local Democratic chairman in Morris County and running for county commissioner.
On paper, Oliver is a great recruit: he was a veteran, a pastor, and lockstep with Democratic progressives on most issues.
But when local activists found out that he spoken at a Democrats for Life event, they turned on him.
One activist group called NJ 11th for Change publicly disowned him, retracting their endorsement. “We do not wish to provide Oliver with a platform for his views or a stepping stone to higher office,” they wrote.
The Morris County Democratic Committee pressured Oliver to step down from his position and eventually ousted him outright. The fact that the county commission had no influence over abortion-related policy didn’t seem to matter.
So eventually, Oliver took the only route available to him: he switched parties and became a Republican.
“He still has the same views, but the Republican Party is welcoming him anyway and not pressuring him to change anything. They just said come on over,” Day explained, saying that this is something they’ve seen across the country.
At a time when the Democratic presidential candidate is welcoming endorsements from Dick Cheney, it appears that abortion has become one of the party’s only litmus tests.
One reason why might be the post-Dobbs polarization, but abortion became a do or die issue for the Democrats before the Supreme Court’s move.
Day explains it partly as a matter of the pro-choice side having ample resources.
“Planned Parenthood and their fundraising is just incredible how much money is poured into it…you’ll have somebody like [billionaire Michael] Bloomberg come and dump 10 million into one of the state ballot initiative races,” she said.
Standing her ground
So why haven’t Day and her colleagues joined Oliver and exited the party?
“I think we are the real Democrats. We have to remind the party where they’re supposed to be. They have gone way too far on this issue. It’s not consistent with traditional Democratic values, and they need to come back,” she said.
She argued that leaving the party would effectively disenfranchise Democrats with her views.
“I think if we leave, we leave all these people without a voice. We leave the mothers who want to keep the babies without a voice, and the legislators who want to fight with them without someone to talk to and support them,” Day said.
Thank You so much for this. I am pro choice up to 12 weeks, after which I think abortion should only be legal in cases of rape, incest, or threats to the mother's health. (I had a first trimester abortion, and although it was emotionally painful, it was the right decision for me at the time. This is not a simple issue).
I was kicked out of the Texas Handmaids for telling them they were crazy for insisting that "men get pregnant, too." But before I got kicked out, I joined them in protesting "Crisis Pregnancy Centers."
Now, I am ashamed that I ever protested those wonderful places.
You know what these "evil" people do? They give away two years worth of free diapers, toys, and baby supplies to low income moms. They also provide free parenting classes and help sign moms up to medicaid and other social services. The volunteers at the crisis pregnancy centers I visited were some of the kindest people I've ever met.
When I was a homeless mom in San Francisco I would have LOVED to have access to a crisis pregnancy center.
But in Blue cities, it's much easier to get an abortion than it is to get free diapers (or a decent affordable place to live). In fact, there was an extremely strong anti-child vibe in SF when I lived there.
"Can't afford a nice apartment loser? Tough luck. You and your failed abortion can sleep on the street." They'll give you free condoms and clean needles in SF, but no free diapers.
For most women who get abortions, it's not a "choice" but an emergency.
A Democratic party that truly cared about poor women would try to make it far easier for pregnant women to choose life.
The other big litmus test I'm seeing from party operatives is transgender rights. Not the "live and let live" sort of "Adults can choose what to do with their bodies" but rather the bleeding edge trans activist approach that normalizes medical interventions in childhood that are increasingly being refused by northern European countries. Once again (irony?) it's worth mentioning that Planned Parenthood is the one of the nation's largest supplier of hormones for young people who want to medicalize their gender dysphoria without proper consultation.
https://www.thefp.com/p/how-did-planned-parenthood-become