Politico: Democrats forced to switch strategies because abortion now a losing issue
If Democrats and liberal feminists lose the presidential election this fall despite their “war on women” pro-abortion strategy, they will have depleted their arsenal.
In their most candid interviews to date, various Democrats and abortion industry players freely admitted in a Politico article today what they have only heretofore hinted at (such as here and here): They know abortion has become a losing issue for them.
In order to get women to unwittingly support abortion, they are pulling out all stops, accusing Republicans of wanting to ban contraception, encourage domestic violence, and deny women breast exams, maternity care, equal pay, and education access. It’s all in a quite revealing article…
Democrats think they’ve figured out how to win the abortion debate: Don’t make it about abortion.
Starting Tuesday, the Democratic convention here will feature speeches from Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards, NARAL President Nancy Keenan and Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who became a flashpoint in the debate over requiring Catholic institutions to pay for birth control.
But don’t expect them to focus on abortion – or even necessarily use the word. Instead, they’ll defend President Barack Obama’s record on reproductive health and reproductive rights. And, as they have before, they’ll accuse GOP nominee Mitt Romney and his party of waging a “war on women.”…
To keep and strengthen its standing, the party has recast its rhetoric on abortion rights. Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans favor at least some abortion restrictions. So Democrats have made the contentious issue part of a larger conversation about women’s health – and that, in turn, is part of a larger conversation that depicts Republicans as opposed to equal pay and access to education for women….
Democrats haven’t always been this cohesive on the abortion debate. In 1992, then-Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey was blocked from speaking to the Democratic convention as part of a fight over his anti-abortion views. For the next decade, Democrats lost House and Senate races in which abortion and measures to limit abortion became central, including fetal-pain legislation and late-term abortion bans.
In the years since, the number of anti-abortion Democrats in Washington has dwindled, and the party has coalesced in favor of abortion rights. Not until the past few months, though, did Democrats begin to put so much attention on issues related to contraception, women’s health care and abortion.
“I’ve never actually seen an election and I’ve been through a few where women’s basic access to health care has been so early and so often a topic of conversation,” Richards said.
(This is only because Richards and her tribe have made it so… because they can no longer scaremonger on “choice”… and also because they are greedy desperate for the windfall profits they would get from taxpayer funded contraception via Obamacare.)
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) described the issue in broad terms. “This is not just about the right to determine when or whether to have a family. It is about the ability to receive regular cancer screenings, maternity care and access to domestic violence counseling,” she said in a statement….
The shift in language helps her party: Asking people to support abortion is a lot harder than criticizing those who are against “rights” and “health.”
“In the age of the ultrasound, the framing of ‘choice’ does continue to resonate with a segment of voters, but not everyone. There’s a lot of women for whom abortion is not a black-and-white issue, but quite gray,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, the moderate Democratic think tank. “Reproductive health is pretty straightforward.”…
Former Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak’s amendment to restrict funding for abortion in Obama’s health care bill nearly tore the party apart and scuttled the law. In the 2010 midterms, the anti-abortion movement almost exclusively backed Republicans, further thinning anti-abortion rights Democrats in Congress. Staunch anti-abortion rights Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA), for example, was among lawmakers targeted in a multimillion dollar 2010 midterm ad campaign from the Susan B. Anthony List that charged she’d “betrayed” her district and “voted for the biggest expansion of abortion in decades.” She lost….
To boil down the pro-abortion dynamics: At some point the Democrat Party started losing politically due to the abortion issue. Rahm Emmanuel recognized this and won Dems back the House majority in 2006 by recruiting pro-lifers. Obama and Nancy Pelosi went on to sacrifice those pro-lifers to pass Obamacare, which has left the Party with no pro-life voice once again. In addition, the Democrat Party has become so liberal in so many other synergistic areas it is barely recognizable from the Party of even 20 years ago.
While the feminist, pro-abortion wing of the Democrat Party is exhibiting great muscle at present, a lot is on the line for them. They may not look desperate, but they really must be.
[Photos via Politico]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
abortion isn’t maternity care.
Right on, Jill! “Arsenol” is spelled “arsenal” if you’re meaning it as I think you are …
Democrats and abortion = Gollum and his Precious.
OF COURSE abortion isn’t a winning issue. For one thing, it’s been legal since 1973. Obama didn’t legalize it and if Romney gets it he can’t criminalize it.
In addition, the number of unplanned pregnancies has remained STATIC at roughly 3 million per year. This suggests deep and terrible failures.
Lets stop the war on republican women!
Born women matter than zygotes.
It’s not about the “babies”, it’s about control. Otherwise, gays and Lesbians would be allowed to adopt.
A child is safer in the care of a gay or Lesbian than in the “care” of a Catholic priest.
Hypocrites.
Raped and pregnant? Carry to term, little girl. The GOP platform of 2012 wants it that way:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/418925306_104ff8b111_o.jpg
Why does the Democratic Party support the execution, without due process, of nearly half a million unborn American females every year? Talk about a war on women.
Kevin, my daughter’s life mattered even when she was just a zygote. Her life mattered just as much as mine did back then. We are both women. Why should it have been legal for me to have her killed just because of how old she was or where she was located? Please answer me, Kevin. I really want to know. How does wanting her and children like her to have their lives protected by law indicate a desire to “control women”? You DO realize that I am a woman, as are MOST of the people who comment here? You DO realize you are commenting as a MALE on a Pro-Life blog run by a FEMALE Pro-Lifer, right?
X, guys like Kevin benefit from abortion. They need abortion in order to control THEIR women.
We’re not dealing with intelligent life forms when it comes to barnacles like him. Hw can’t even write a coherent sentence. It was just his turn to troll today, nothing personal.
For you, it’s personal. Thank God Maggie is here!
“zygote”? That “lump of cells” has never become anything other than a human. You don’t get a turtle or a stapler from a zygote, you get a unique human being.
Kevin is an expert at this year’s DNC playbook, distract the attention away from the issue at hand!
“Born women matter than zygotes.”
Kevin the word “zygote” is just a label for a human being in its earliest stage. It is no different from other labels we use to describe the various stages of a human life: “embryo”,”fetus”, “infant”, “toddler”, “teenager” etc…
So your will have to explain the signficance that you see in birth. Why do you thinkl that the location of the baby inside the womb permits society to kill it? Does being inside the womb make the preborn child less human in your opinion?
There are two issues here – one for prolifers and one for the GOP.
Prolifers realize that the contraception issue is, for the most part, a red herring when it comes to whether abortion should remain legal or not.
The issue for the GOP is a little more complicated. They need to address this issue manufactured by the Dems. They need to have a policy on contraception. Prolifers should help them with this.
Would chaperoned dating or courtship decrease irresponsible sexual activity?
Would more home school decrease such activity?
How about more education and work online?
Both unwanted pregnancies and STDs are tearing human beings to bits — and both have the same root. Decrease irresponsible sexual activity!
Kevin says:
“Born women matter than zygotes.”
In other words, Born Women matter more than Pre-born Women.
In some ways, this may be true. But this does not give us the license to kill the women in their mother’s wombs.
Kevin says:
Raped and pregnant? Carry to term, little girl. The GOP platform of 2012 wants it that way:
Reasonable people are very disturbed when we encounter people (like Kevin) who believe that killing is an easy solution to any problem.
The young girl and the child conceived by rape are both innocent victims, and they both deserve our love and care. Coercing a young rape victim to participate in the violent death of the other child within her will leave her even further scarred for life. We must do better for the victims than scarring and killing them.
Kevin says:
It’s not about the “babies”, it’s about control. Otherwise, gays and Lesbians would be allowed to adopt.
A child is safer in the care of a gay or Lesbian than in the “care” of a Catholic priest.
Hypocrites.
Now you’re just being dumb.
The overwhelming majority of sexual abuse case by priests involved homosexual men preying upon adolescent boys. The Catholic Church in America has cured this problem by removing homosexual priests from ministry and adopting a strict, zero-tolerance policy — in which a minister is removed upon first rumor and deemed guilty until proven innocent.
Because of this, no priest can accept a child into his care — or even spend time alone with a child — to avoid the mere appearance of potential abuse.
Meanwhile, scientific demographic analysis has shown that children raised in homosexual homes suffer increased risk and emotional damage as they grow up. Demographers are trying to figure out why this is so.
Kevin — there’s no reason to keep assert your empty assumptions when data is available for you to think about.
Reasonable people are very disturbed when we encounter people (like Kevin) who believe that killing is an easy solution to any problem.
Methinks that would be because people (like Kevin) who believe that killing is an easy solution to any problem are very disturbed.
There’s hypocrisy and there’s hypocrisy…and anyone, especially anyone born since Roe who has not killed themself and promotes abortion has it on steroids. How old are you, Kevin? Chronologically; we know your maturity level.
Raped and pregnant? Carry to term, little girl. The GOP platform of 2012 wants it that way
Can’t let you do that, Star Fox. The 2012 platform neither says nor implies anything about abortion in cases of rape. It’s also no different from the last eight GOP platforms.
http://factcheck.org/2012/08/another-abortion-falsehood-from-obamas-truth-team/
http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2012/sep/04/bob-mcdonnell/bob-mcdonnell-says-gop-platform-has-included-ban-a/
Is it acceptable to kill an innocent human being in order to make the victim of a horrible crime suffer less?
I’m so sick of the Catholic priests = pedophiles crap. The rates of abuse in the Catholic church is about on par with other organizations, actually I think the Boy Scouts have a higher rate of abuse. The hierarchy handled the abuses terribly, in my opinion, but a Catholic priest is no more likely to be a pedo than a school teacher. People really need to stop acting like Catholics have some monopoly on this stuff, it is helping exactly no one.
I would like to see studies that claim that kids raised in gay households turn out with more issues, Del. Reliable studies.
I’ve noticed that defences of Planned Parenthood always seem to start the same way (Planned Parenthood is this excellent healthcare provider that helps poor women get cancer screenings, has almost nothing to do with abortion, and is so wonderful that even pro-lifers should support it) and end the same way (defunding Planned Parenthood is really part of a coordinated attack on a woman’s right to reproductive choice).
Jack Borsch says:
I would like to see studies that claim that kids raised in gay households turn out with more issues, Del. Reliable studies.
Here’s a summary report of the results, including a bit on scope and limitations of the study…. deeper reporting than most articles on “science,” which we expect from a serious pro-family organization.
Links to the original research are at the bottom.
We should consider these “reliable,” as they are good-faith research studies that are published in respected journals. We look to the scientific community to verify or dispute this — we should not endorse or poo-poo it merely because it reinforces or offends our political worldview.
http://www.frc.org/issuebrief/new-study-on-homosexual-parents-tops-all-previous-research
I know I might offend people here, but I don’t take anything the FRC does seriously in regards to homosexuality. Any organization that has a vested interest in finding reasons why homosexuality is harmful is not going to give me non-biased information. The study they linked seems valid, but it’s just one study. I would need to see those results replicated several times. Hopefully people will still research in that direction so good information can be had.
Ted Kennedy on abortion:
“While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized—the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.
“On the question of the individual’s freedom of choice there are easily available birth control methods and information which women may employ to prevent or postpone pregnancy. But once life has begun, no matter at what stage of growth, it is my belief that termination should not be decided merely by desire.
“When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.”
Jesse Jackson on abortion:
“In the abortion debate one of the crucial questions is when does life begin. Anything growing is living. Therefore human life begins when the sperm and egg join and drop into the fallopian tube and the pulsation of life take place. From that point, life may be described differently (as an egg, embryo, fetus, baby, child, teenager, adult), but the essence is the same. The name has changed but the game remains the same.
Human beings cannot give or create life by themselves, it is really a gift from God. Therefore, one does not have the right to take away (through abortion) that which he does not have the ability to give. “
He said this before abortion became the sacred cow of the Democratic Party, and to remail pro-life would be suicide for his political career. You can find similar quotes from Jesse Jackson before he sold out to the Grand Massa.
Yeah, I said it.
Jack, FRC was only reporting on the study.
There has been a lot of junk science done in this area. One good study can invalidate them all. The New Family Structure Study was greatly anticipated because of its methods. I think the last word has yet to be written on family outcomes and homosexuality.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610
Some commentary by an author at Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/06/gay_parents_are_they_really_no_different_.html
@ Navi: No one who isn’t pregnant has an abortion. Can you think of ways to prevent rape victims from getting pregnant in the first place from the attack?
Rape is traumatic for anyone. Often pregnancy isn’t even an issue in a rape: male-on-male rape, the rapes of children, the rapes of elderly women. It is nevertheless traumatic. However, I believe it is fair to say that any fertile young woman who has just been attacked does not want to be pregnant from her assailant.
I admit I may be wrong. There may be women who get raped and hope they are pregnant by the attacker. The question of how to prevent rape victims from getting pregnant from the attack only applies to those who would NOT look forward to being impregnated by their rapists.
Also of note:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-06/e-sce060712.php
Even more disturbing, Navi, is the pervasive idea that PP does SO MUCH GOOD STUFF that even that little tiny number of babies killed is okay. I hear it way too often, and lots of deluded people seem to think there is no other place a poor woman can go for healthcare.
What I want to know is, how will PP help me if my husband looses his job and with it our family’s health insurance? Will they take care of my daughter’s scheduled immunizations? Will they buy the diapers she needs, or give me the vitamins I need? How about swabbing for strep throat or checking for an ear infection? NO??? But, but, but….I thought this place did SO MUCH GOOD STUFF to help women with their healthcare?!?!
JackBorsch says: “I would need to see those results replicated several times. Hopefully people will still research in that direction so good information can be had. “
Not likely, since the author of the study, Mark Regnerus, is being vilified because people don’t like the results.
No, he’s being vilified because of the poor quality of his research and his obvious bias as a result of taking funding from the Witherspoon Institute.
Here’s a scathing critique of his “study” from four of his colleagues at UTA:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debra-umberson/texas-professors-gay-research_b_1628988.html
See also (posted separately to avoid triggering automatic moderation):
http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/controversial-gay-parenting-study-is-severely-flawed-journals-audit-finds/30255
joan, do you have any links to critiques of that study from something other than HuffPo and blogs? HuffPo tends to not be incredibly reliable.
The Huffington Post article was written by a colleague of Regnerus at UT-Austin, in collaboration with 3 other faculty members there. I don’t think the particular venue where they chose to present their opinion on Regnerus’ work is even remotely important.
The CHE (which is a well-respected source of news in academia) blog is merely a summary of the internal audit by the journal where Regnerus’ piece was originally published, Social Science Research.
Tyler says: The issue for the GOP is a little more complicated. They need to address this issue manufactured by the Dems. They need to have a policy on contraception. Prolifers should help them with this.
The conservative policy on birth control should be: buy your own, pay for your own. It should be the same for all life-style or recreational treatments.
Pro-lifers need to stop abusing the term “contraceptive” to include forms of birth control with multiple mechanisms, some of which are abortive.
BIRTH CONTROL is the most accurate catch-all term.
To specify the subtypes of birth control, the following terms might be applied: Abortive or abortifacient, barrier, uterotonic, hormonal, NFP, symptothermal, periodic abstinence.
The policies and ideas put forth by pro-lifers will be more coherent once the area of overlap between abortion and birth control is delineated.
I agree about HuffPo in general, Jack, but the brief critique gives a good idea of the basic issue his colleagues have with the study. Bad sampling and low number of samples? If his gay cohort was deemed to broad, something might have been redeemed from the study if the sample numbers were high enough. Apparently — if the writer is to be believed — they were not.
Good studies are tough. Even excellent studies attract fire from political hacks. But poorly done studies don’t necessarily mean their authors should be impugned on political bases. They just need to learn how to do better studies.
If Planned Parenthood really does cancer screenings, I got one question:
Show me the mammo!
Show me the mammo!
Cuz ya know what? Ya got nothin’.
Sounds like Sandra Fluke just read the third paragraph of this post verbatim.
I can’t handle watching Clinton’s entire speech. I’ll look at clips later, peeking through my fingers. ;)
It was a great speech. Really. Clinton knows how to connect. There’s no denying his communication skills.
I’ve also never — ever — heard a convention speech with as much fodder for fact checkers. Which, as I imagine, means there’ll be little effort by the fact checkers to bother with the job of checking it. Rock stars get a pass. Or some token negatives to deflect the criticism that the checkers were too busy swooning to attend to their checking.
Ya ever sing a note and ascend in pitch until you’re forced to go falsetto? How clean can you break? Clinton did something similar in the last 15-20 minutes. He broke from a standard political critique (well delivered) of Romney/Ryan into a full-on round of outrageous demagoguery. The president famous for pivoting, pivoted again. I found the change interesting.
Clinton’s style is that of an evangelist. He has the convinced charisma of a Billy Graham — minus the morals. For all appearances he’s aged like a fine wine. But take a sip and it’s vinegar.
Marvin,
Would you have been there cheering on your mother’s “choice” to abort you in such ways? How does proposing things like that here, that you know are dangerous, illustrate any kind of support of or care for women? Also, please stop accusing me of fetus worship. I don’t worship anything since I’m not religious. Sheesh. How would you like it if every posted rebuttal to you I call you a “death worshiper”?
I think there should be a rule that you can’t post while you’re on the crystal meth.
Charles, please go back to channeling Marvin. He was 1/14 more coherent than you are.
“No one who isn’t pregnant has an abortion.”
Not true. Abortion procedures have been sold to women who did not test positively pregnant. I seem to recall a Chicago Sun-Times undercover investigation where a reporter who was not pregnant presented her bf or husband’s urine for a pregnancy test…and found out that he was pregnant. She knew the result couldn’t possibly be accurate, but the “counselor” kept insisting that she was, and pressuring her to abort.
The same kind of sting happened at one of Carol Everett’s TX mills when she was in the trade, and I’ve heard of other abortionists subjecting women to these dangerous, traumatic assaults just to make sure there’s no pregnancy.
Morning-after pill, which raises zero ethical concerns, unlike abortion.