The effect of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) on abortion has been the subject of much controversy, and pro-life members of Congress who voted for PPACA have received strong criticism as well as strong praise.  This memorandum has three purposes.  First, it provides a brief reminder that PPACA contains many provisions reflecting pro-life values and having pro-life effects.  Second, it assesses the two major criticisms of PPACA concerning abortion raised by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).  Although the USCCB has been the most detailed and thoughtful critic of the statute on abortion-related matters, this memorandum concludes that there are convincing answers to the USCCB’s criticisms and thus it was eminently reasonable for pro-life legislators to support PPACA.

Finally, the memorandum concludes that it also makes perfect sense for a pro-life legislator to support further efforts to clarify restrictions on abortion funding and protections of religious conscience in the context of a stand-alone bill.  Unlike the context of the PPACA vote, enactment of stand-alone clarifications will not destroy health-reform legislation and its many positive pro-life features and effects.  But support for such further clarification should in no way be seized on as an admission that PPACA’s provisions against abortion funding were inadequate.

Continue reading →

DFLA’s Charles Camosy writes:

Family leave programs and child-care support are energetically backed by liberals. Hillary Clinton just wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post pledging to provide incentives to improve the situation. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has introduced federal legislation mandating paid family leave. If conservatives are wise, they will join in the effort. This is especially true for those who are antiabortion: They should want mothers to have the resources to help them keep their babies….

Democrats who want to see such bills pass need to come up with a carrot to get moderate Republicans on board. A nearly perfect one exists: the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which was passed by the House last year but filibustered by Senate Democrats.

The bill would ban elective abortions past the 20th week of pregnancy. The United States is extreme in allowing such abortions in the first place; it is one of only seven countries in the world that permit abortions beyond 20 weeks. Though there is legitimate debate among biologists about when a fetus can feel pain, the Pain-Capable Act’s 20-week ban is common-sense legislation that would catch up our abortion policy with France, Britain, Germany and most of the rest of the civilized world.

By Matthew Tyson

On May 12th, 2016, Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama signed a bill that would prohibit abortions performed through “Dilation or Evacuation”—other wise known in the bill as “dismemberment abortion.” This would essentially prohibit second trimester abortions of viable infants in Alabama.

SB 363, or the Alabama Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act, has the full support of Democrats for Life of America, and we would like to send our sincerest gratitude to the 5 Democratic legislators that voted in favor of the bill: House minority leader Craig Ford (D, Gadsden) and Rep. Elaine Beech (D, Chatom), as well as Senators Priscilla Dunn (D, Bessemer), Linda Coleman-Madison (D, Birmingham), and Vivian Figures (D, Mobile).

Though a win for the whole life community to provide protection to preborn infants, the bill attracted the expected negative criticism from abortion rights supporters.

Continue reading →

Continue reading →

by Matt Tuman

Today’s front-page article of the Washington Post discussed the enormous electoral losses Democrats have taken since President Obama was inaugurated in January 2009. Since then, Democrats have lost 13 Senate seats, 69 House Seats, 913 state legislative seats, 11 governorships and 32 state legislative chambers.

The natural question that follows is, “How did this happen?”

Pro-life Democrats have been alienated from the Democratic Party. The 2012 Democratic platform stated the party “strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade” and “opposes any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.” With this uncompromising stance, the party excludes over one third of all Democrats. In a CNN/ORC poll released last year, 36 percent of Democrats said that abortion should be illegal before the fetus is viable. The Democratic Party cannot thrive when it ostracizes such a large part of its membership.

Continue reading →

Friday, January 20, 2017 is a cold day in Washington, DC.  The scene outside the Capitol building is familiar to many political aficionados, although the cast of characters is somewhat different.  It is now Hillary instead of Bill raising her hand to take the oath of office, and the faces around her are more diverse than before.  After thumping Republican nominee Donald Trump (yes, that actually happened), the Democratic Party is full of optimism.  After electing the first African-American president and reelecting him four years later, the presidency can now no longer exclusively use the pronoun “he”.  Democrats are the party of diversity and progress, as astounding numbers of Hispanics and African-Americans carry Hillary to the White House.

On this date, it is easy to fall into the Democratic talking points of an ascendant party, one that will control at least two branches of the government in the near future with maybe the Congress within reach.  However, if this future occurs, it will be a house built on sand, to borrow a biblical phrase.

Continue reading →

John Wesley Leek

The Mississippi Democratic Party platform in 2012 left little room for pro-life Democrats stating among other things that the party “strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade” and that “we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine (abortion rights).”

I went to my county convention Saturday March 12th with proposed platform language adapted from statements provided by Democrats for Life of America.

I felt suddenly nervous as I stood to speak. I hadn’t met many of the people there before and had heard many times that most Democrats identify as pro-choice. Here is what I read: Continue reading →

By Celia Wolf-Devine

***Originally Published by Providence Journal

You want to be on the side of the angels.  You are concerned about the growing gap between rich and poor, cut backs in services provided for the most vulnerable members of our society, environmental degradation, loss of jobs through downsizing and corporations moving to other countries where labor is cheaper, harsh immigration policies, racial prejudice, expensive wars overseas, erosion of democracy, threats to civil liberties, and attempts on the part of right wingers to curtail women’s right to abortion.  WAIT A MINUTE!

“Abortion rights” simply do not belong on this list of “good guy” causes.  I’ll sign on for all the other things on the list; I believe that makes me a progressive.  But the dirty little secret here is that abortion is being used to keep down the numbers of the poor, especially people of color.  It is cheaper than doing something to help them.  Black women are more than three times as likely to undergo abortions as white women.  Abortion clinics are located in poor neighborhoods and abortion encouraged among people of color.  Under a mask of compassion lurks the ruthless destruction in the womb of those who would be born poor and perhaps make some demands upon us and threaten our comfortable position.

Continue reading →

By Robert Hay

In the past month, two high-profile incidents have shown how powerful a hold the pro-choice movement has on the Democratic Party, and its hope to “expand the playing field” and win more elective victories is imperiled as a result.

The first incident involved DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an unabashed pro-choice politician and one of the architects of the “war on women” campaign strategy.  In a Q&A with The New York Times, the Chair when asked about abortion rights said, “Here’s what I see: a complacency among the generation of young women whose entire lives have been lived after Roe v. Wade was decided.”  The quote could have been a moment to examine within the Democratic Party its unwavering opposition to any abortion opposition, or at least a soul-searching about whether she was right, and the reason record numbers of abortion restrictions were being passed was because younger Americans didn’t know what life was like without unrestricted abortion.

Instead, the pro-choice machine went into full court press, going to the media declaring that Wasserman Schultz was wrong and that the younger generation was the most passionate and most open in their caring about this issue.  This despite the fact polls show the Millennial generation just as divided about abortion as previous ones.  Wasserman Schultz, faced with pressure, immediately back tracked from her comments and the party lost a chance to think deeply about itself and abortion.

Continue reading →