Sensing an opportunity to impress religious voters — and tip elections — Democrats in Congress and on the campaign trail have begun to adopt some of the language and policy goals of the antiabortion movement.
For years, the liberal response to abortion has been to promote more accessible and affordable birth control as well as detailed sex education in public schools.
That's still the foundation of Democratic policies. But in a striking shift, Democrats in the House last week promoted a grab bag of programs designed not only to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but also to encourage women who do conceive to carry to term.
The new approach embraces some measures long sought by antiabortion activists. It's designed to appeal to the broad centrist bloc of voters who don't want to criminalize every abortion — yet are troubled by a culture that accepts 1.3 million terminations a year.
We know that after the 2004 election the Dems were shocked to see how badly they performed among religious voters and since then have been trying to fix that. We've seen nearly every candidate invoke God or the Bible in some fashion during this campaign, and this looks like another attempt to fool the voters into thinking they're not what they really are.
Not everyone in Congress is impressed with this effort:
But conservatives also accuse Democrats of using abortion rhetoric to sell the right on traditional liberal priorities, such as healthcare funding. Democrats have rejected other ideas that conservatives consider highly effective in reducing abortions, such as requiring women to view ultrasound images of the womb.
"In terms of bridging the ideological gulf, you need to ask: Is this a two-way street?" said David K. DeWolf, a law professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., who has advised antiabortion groups.
Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican from Indiana, sees hypocrisy in the fact that much of the new family planning funding will go to Planned Parenthood. The money can't be used to terminate pregnancies — it's for birth control and gynecology services. But Pence says it's ludicrous to send tax dollars to the nation's largest abortion provider in the name of reducing abortions.
"That's not a common ground I can accept," Pence said.
There's also anger among the hard left who feel that every live birth is a personal failure. They don't like moderation in anything, and since abortion has become a sacrament of the hard left, they won't appreciate Democrats messing with their religion.
In the long run I doubt if this effort will result in the electoral success the Dems hope it will. It's too transparent an effort to pander to religious voters.
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