Democrats for Life walks back endorsement of pro-abortion candidate
When last week Live Action blogger Kristi Burton Brown called out Democrats for Life of America for endorsing Virginia pro-abortion Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Tim Kaine, she received this response from DFLA Executive Director Kristen Day:
We support Chairman Kaine because of his record and work with DFLA. While Governor, Tim Kaine signed the Choose Life Life license plate bill in law. We were proud to work with the Governor to ensure the bill was passed and critical funds could be used to support crisis pregnancy centers. He also signed in to law the Pregnant Women Support Act introduced by Senator Phil Puckett and cosponsored by then Republican Senator Ken Cuccinelli. While Chair of the DNC, he supported pro-life Democrats and his policies help elect pro-life elected officials.
This despite the fact that Kaine’s website states:
I strongly support the right of women to make their own health and reproductive decisions and, for that reason, will oppose efforts to weaken or subvert the basic holding of Roe v. Wade. We all share the goal of reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortions. The right way to do this is through education and access to health care and contraception rather than criminalizing women’s reproductive decisions.
Under fire, DFLA has now rescinded its endorsement, as noted by Secular Pro-Life. DFLA’s current statement is almost the same as the endorsement, with the caveats…
Former DNC Chairman and Governor Tim Kaine has been a friend to DFLA and has previously defined himself as a pro-life Democrat…. His spokesman and website are is now identifying him as a pro-choice Democrat. DFLA, therefore, cannot endorse Governor Kaine. However, should he be elected to the Senate, we look forward to the opportunity to work with him to pass pro-life legislation.
… Just in the nick of time, since Kaine released an ad yesterday castigating Republican pro-life opponent George Allen for his pro-life stance…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGYBLyxf764[/youtube]
Obviously, DFLA did not vet Kaine.
As an aside, the national pro-life community has shunned DFLA since 2010, when Day signed affidavits in support of Democrat Congressman Steve Driehaus in his lawsuit against the Susan B. Anthony List, blaming the pro-life group’s ad campaign for his defeat.
Day further implicated National Right to Life Committee and Family Research Council.
The lawsuit is still live and negatively impacting SBA List’s work. SBA List announced last week that Lamar Companies would not erect its billboard against Indiana Democrat Congressman Joe Donnelly, because the Driehaus lawsuit had not been settled.
But as SBA List says, “If you can’t do billboard, you do tv!”
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.
If DFLA were really FL they wouldn’t be D. Period. Why does nobody from DFLA ever speak at the March for Life?
DFLA is a joke. I used to be a member when I was a Democrat, but became a vocal critic when in 2004, 1) some state chapters endorsed Kerry, and 2) they kept Rep. James Langevin on their Advisory Board even after he gave the introductory speech for Ron Reagan at the DNC where he promoted Embryonic Stem Cell Research. DFLA showed their true loyalty to the Democrat Party during the Obamacare battle when all but one of their pro-life sweethearts caved to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Coward Bart Stupak is their poster boy.
If Bart Stupak did nothing else he taught us a Democrat is a Democrat is a Democrat, first, foremost, and only. If we learn nothing from that we are stupider than he was.
There is no such thing as a ‘Democrat for Life’, it doesn’t exist.
There’s no such thing as “pro-abortion”; it doesn’t exist.
Pro-life Democrat? An oxymoron.
Every year during the March for Life, “pro-life” Democrat Senator Bob Casey holds a conference in the Russell Building with pro-lifers who show up there, and during the conference he talks at us telling us what a great pro-lifer he is. It’s the same every year. One year someone in the audience asked him, why do we need to come in here to see you, Senator Casey? You should be marching for life with the rest of us! But Casey’s response is always that he is just too busy doing his job. Yet somehow, Republican Congressmen and Senators are able to make the time to speak at the rally before the march.
Senator Casey might be a disgrace (he wasn’t brave enough to defy his party and vote against funding Planned Parenthood). His dad, however, was a true pro-life Democrat and mounted one of the most important challenges to Roe v. Wade. Of course, he ended up getting screwed over at the 1992 DNC because of this (despite otherwise being a liberal governor).
They’re rare, but they do exist and deserve support.
CharlieE,
Years ago pro abortion people called themselves just that…pro abortion. Abortion was called abortion, not “choice” “women’s health” or “reproductive freedom”. When abortion started becoming more unpopular it was changed to pro choice.
So yes pro abortion does exist.
CharlieE, would you also agree that there’s no such thing as “anti-choice” and that it does not exist? Just wondering.
Charlie, your president is pro-abortion. He sees his daughters’ unplanned pregnancies as entirely solvable by abortion, because babies are “punish”ments.
Dude, do your homework. We’re pros here.
Democrats for Life lost relevance when they supported that sham executive order in 2010 which, in practice, did nothing to stop taxpayer funding of abortion in Obamacare.
What is the reason for disparaging someone simply for being a democrat?
Elected officials are a tiny portion of the ppl who identify with the democratic party.
In these recent four years, it has become clear to may democrats that there are two camps under the democrat banner: socialists and plain ol’ Constitution-believing democrats. Ted Kennedy was strongly pro-life before realizing the political advantage to be gained by being pro-choice, and the same for Jesse Jackson. The aceptability of abortion has been pushed by socialists, who have had to be “Fabian”/underground/masquarading as plain ol democrats.
”Occupy” has helped make this evident. NPR used to NEVER identify any of their heros as anti-capitalist or as socialist or marxists, even when these heros (Zinn, Chomsky, Steinam, etc.) are on record as socialists. Now, in the recent 2 years, there is a 50/50 they will mention this. Many Pacifica stations are playing the weekly “Uprising” show which is decidedly socialist, anti-capitalist.
This is not a time to alienate your neighbors who identify as democrats not because they want to subvert the dominant paradigm, but because they are interested in a fair. level playing field between the employer and empployee, consumer and corporation, want due process, want quality public education regardless of local SES, want product safety, want to protect the quality of the envirinment, protect whistleblowers, a humane medical safety net, open government, etc. – and believe in the Constitution and in a regulated capitalist economy, where opportunity is fair, but not where any posessions are mathematically evenly distrbuted across all.
This is a unique time. If Obama gets re-elected, the dem party will definitely split into 2 clear branches similar to the ‘conservative/republican’ split.
If you have friends and family who identify as democrat, you should encourage them to continue to be Americans, but point out how the party is getting railroaded by people who want to boo God and make commitment to govt-funded abortion a line-in-the-sand issue.
They may or may not become republican or conservative. They may finally wake up and see that, yes, it has been proven that the Rosenbergs were communist Russian spies, and yes, many actors in the McCarthy days actually were reds. It is not wrong to acknoweldge what history has revealed.
And yes, there is a ‘communist party usa’ – it is easy to find their website; there is a ‘democratic socialists of america’ -it is easy to find their website.
Or, you can cast blanket aspersions on all democrats, and fulfill the stereotype of a boorish, insensitive, unthinking conservative.
This is not a time to alienate your neighbors who identify as democrats not because they want to subvert the dominant paradigm, but because they are interested in a fair. level playing field between the employer and empployee, consumer and corporation, want due process, want quality public education regardless of local SES, want product safety, want to protect the quality of the envirinment, protect whistleblowers, a humane medical safety net, open government, etc. – and believe in the Constitution and in a regulated capitalist economy, where opportunity is fair, but not where any posessions are mathematically evenly distrbuted across all.
I guess I just don’t understand the need for “actual democrats” then, because America as it is already HAS all those things, and I don’t think Republicans are trying to take any of those things away.
I also think the DFLA is a joke.