ARTICLES
MARCH 2005 ARTICLES
Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
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Are They Serious?
Pro-Life Democrats Hopeful for Change in Party
BY CHRISTOPHER ZEHNDER
Since the image of a big tent suggests a circus, one may wonder why political parties often want to claim it for themselves. For party members, of course, a "big tent" connotes inclusiveness; but to others, it conjures up clowns. Though there was not too much talk of tents big or small at last August's Republican Party convention (held in the Big Apple), it certainly was on organizers' minds. With prime time appearances of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York mayor Rudolf Guiliani, the convention seemed a Big Tent affair — and not because these gentlemen are clowns.
No indeed. For "big tent" as a descriptive phrase finally indicates acceptance of pro-abortion Republican candidates, and both Schwarzenegger and Guiliani are pro-abortion Republicans. So is Joann Davidson, a former representative from Ohio, whom the Republican national committee unanimously approved as its party's co-chairman in January.
So it is strange that "big tent" would suddenly be applied to the Democratic Party, long the small tent haven for "abortion rights." Even more strange is that in December of last year it began to be used in relation to attempts by some in the Democratic Party to be more inclusive of anti-abortion or pro-life members. For the first time in 32 years, Democrats were asking their pro-life party members to join the act in the party's newly designed big tent.
And not just any Democrats, but even the likes of House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (San Francisco) and Senator John Kerry himself were reaching out to Democrat pro-lifers. According to news reports in mid December, Pelosi, a staunch pro-abortion representative, encouraged Tim Roemer, a former pro-life Democratic representative from Pennsylvania, to run for the chairmanship of the Democratic Party. As of early February, he was firmly in the running, though he ultimately lost to Vermont's pro-abortion former governor Howard Dean on February 12. But, as the February 14 LifeSiteNews.com reported, shortly after his election, Dean told party members not to refer to themselves as "pro-choice," so as not to offend conservatives. At a Democratic meeting held in early December, where he thanked his supporters, former presidential candidate Kerry said, "we have to find a different way to deal with the issue of abortion in terms of explaining the Democratic position, and we have to find a way to bring in right-to-life Democrats back into the Democratic Party." And he went even further than this. "We're a different Democratic Party," said the Massachusetts senator. "We may look at perhaps the whole idea of parental notification in terms of abortion. We may look at banning it in the third trimester." This is quite a change, given that, as Kristin Day, executive director of the anti-abortion Democrats for Life of America, told the December 19 Washington Globe, during the election she could not convince the Democratic National Committee to list her group on the committee's website.
What is one to make of this new Democratic big tent? Is it sincere? Is it merely an attempt to lure in "red state" voters who supposedly gave President George W. Bush his November victory precisely because Bush is "pro-life"? Or is the party trying to pull the canvas over our eyes?
In December, Kristin Day told me she thought the shift in the Democratic Party could be a real one. "I think the election sent a big message to our party that we are not the party of abortion on demand and gay marriage and all the other issues that our party has been painted; [that] we really need to get back to our roots of supporting those who need assistance, affordable healthcare, and helping working families. I think the abortion issue overshadows what the Democratic Party really stands for, so I think it's a really good sign that the leadership is now saying we need to be more inclusive of pro-life Democrats and let their voices be heard."
Karen Wheeler of Torrance, president of the California chapter of Democrats for Life, said of the party's motives in embracing pro-life members, "I think they want to win the next election." But Wheeler remains cautiously optimistic. "I think they're feeling their way forward," she said. "I'm going to take this in good faith that they are interested in opening a dialogue and that this marks a sea change from when Terry McAuliffe was the head of the party. He gave pro-life Democrats the cold shoulder. I think Zogby's poll last year, which pointed out that some 43 percent of Democrats self-identify as pro-life — I think that's beginning to reach the ears of the right people, and they're beginning to give some attention to it. Are they serious? I don't know. Let's take it in good faith, open a dialogue, and see what happens."
Wheeler said the number of Democrats in Congress "who see themselves as pro-life" fluctuates between 25 and 30 members. "For them, it's been a hard environment to be in for some time," she said. "But they do represent the views of their constituency, so that is why they have continued to be re-elected." But the party's "emphasis and focus on an extremely severe line about reproductive issues," such as opposition to a partial-birth abortion ban, has repelled a majority of Americans, Wheeler thinks. She said if the party "could back away from some of those things and take a look at the ways, as President Clinton said a number of years ago, that abortion could be made safe, legal, and rare, it might renew some peoples' perspective on the Democrats and make them more likely to consider supporting them."
Kristin Day doesn't see opposition to abortion as hurting Democratic candidates "when they emphasize the issues that the Democratic Party stands for." She pointed to the examples of recent victories for pro-life candidates — Joe Manchin, III for governor in West Virginia and Bob Casey for state treasurer in Pennsylvania. Again, Wheeler was more cautious. In some places, she said, opposition to abortion would be a winning issue for Democrats — such as in the Bible and Rust Belt states. But not in California where Wheeler sees "the economic issues driving more people." In the end, she said, abortion is not the only factor that drives peoples' votes.
How might the Democratic Party continue to move in a pro-life direction? "One thing we can do right now without changing the platform, without changing anything," said Day, "is to work to make abortion rare. It says in our [party] platform that we want to make abortion rare, and we have done nothing to make abortion rare. We've just been supporting abortion on demand and all policies that make it easier for a woman to have an abortion than to have a child — even if they really want to have the baby."
But Day does hope that eventually the party will change its platform. Democrats for Life, she said, "would love to see our party have a pro-life platform and be consistent in helping those who don't have a voice or a vote in our society; and nobody is more vulnerable than an unborn child." Would that platform call for legal prohibitions against abortion? "We believe that life begins at conception, and we would like to see all abortion end," said Day. "But I think the most important thing we need to do is find the common ground, make abortion rare — and obviously we would like to see it end, but we have to work step by step right now and see what kinds of things we need to do to help women, and right now we're not doing much to help women in a crisis pregnancy."
Karen Wheeler echoed Day. "Ultimately in the long run," said Wheeler, "we would like to have a society that honors life at all ages and stages. In the big picture, years down the road. But we're talking about growing a culture brick by brick. Building it small but with an increasing awareness of the value of life and of it being a fundamental civil right from which the other ones arise. Ultimately, somewhere down the road, we would like there not to be abortions or assisted physician killings or the death penalty. But the public is not there yet, and we would like to grow it, not impose it. I know some people in the pro-life movement would like to suddenly impose a ban on abortion; but I think our sense is that let's grow the awareness and so that when ultimately we can protect everybody there will be an understanding of why and a way to do it."
But despite the seeming change of attitude in the Democratic Party toward pro-life members, the goal of a pro-life Democratic Party seems a long way off. Why, then, be a Democrat? "People ask us that question all the time," said Kristin Day. "We strongly believe in helping working families and keeping social security for the retirees, affordable health care; helping people. That's why we stay in the party, because we agree with our party in what it stands for."
"Most of us would just make lousy Republicans," Karen Wheeler said. "My husband is Republican, and I have tried mightily to understand why gun rights are so important or why making jokes about environmentalists is so funny. I just don't get it. It would be much more convenient to get it, but I don't! I'm too much of a tree hugger; I scratch my head about the gun control things; I don't see what would be so wrong about having a living wage or about encouraging work that somebody could actually support a family with; and I don't automatically salute the flag every time George Bush talks, although I do try to be respectful of our elected officials. But, darn, I wouldn't make a very good Republican!"
And, said Wheeler, she is not alone in Democrats for Life. "Of course everyone has their own story," she said, "but people on the national board of Democrats for Life have come up through the labor movement, the peace movement from the Vietnam War era, from the Native American rights perspective, from the civil rights movement. One of the former presidents of Democrats for Life is one of the people who drove through the South registering voters in the '60s. I mean, people have a long history of being a Democrat, and the young people who have joined Democrats for Life are coming at it from a perspective of 'can I get some consistency here? A life ethic that makes sense and a way of participating politically that I can rest my conscience with?' So, I guess that's why we're Democrats."
But another member of Democrats for Life (and self-styled "New Deal Democrat"), David Carlin, had a somewhat different perspective on whether it makes sense for a pro-life person to be a Democrat. "It's not an easy question to answer," Carlin, a six-term Democratic member of the Rhode Island state senate, said. "The national Democratic Party has largely embraced the agenda of the anti-Christian secularists, a political agenda that includes strong support for abortion rights, for same-sex marriage, and probably a number of other things as time goes by. Since this is the case, I think it doesn't make any sense anymore for a Catholic to be a Democrat unless he's doing what I'm doing, trying to work within to change the party." Failing that sort of participation, Carlin said that "by and large I don't think it makes any sense to support the Democratic Party, because it has entered into an alliance with the enemy of Christianity, the enemy of Catholicism. It's like a Jew voting for the Nazis. Now does it make any sense for a Jew to be a member of the Nazi party in the hopes of changing it? Well I don't know."