Democrats Modifying Abortion Stance

Democrats Modifying Abortion Stance: "With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story...

Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2005 4:53 p.m. EST
Democrats Modifying Abortion Stance

The Democrats are so intent on unseating Republicans in Congress next year that they’re even moderating their strong pro-choice stance on abortion.

Case in point: The party has chosen Robert Casey Jr., who is pro-life, to run against Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, the third-ranking GOP member of the Senate and the Democrats’ chief target in the 2006 election.

Writing in The New Yorker, Peter J. Boyer reveals that New York Sen. Charles Schumer – chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee – told him: "When we sat down and looked at the map we said our No. 1 take-back seat would be Pennsylvania.”

Schumer asked the advice of Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, who Schumer says told him: "There’s only one guy who can beat [Santorum]. But he doesn’t want to run, and you guys wouldn’t want him even if he did. He’s not pro—choice.”

State Treasurer Casey is not only pro-life, he’s linked in many Pennsylvanians’ minds with his father Robert P. Casey, who as governor of the state promoted and signed the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act.
The bill placed significant limitations on abortion. A Planned Parenthood group sued the state, with Casey as the named defendant, and the Supreme Court eventually struck down most of the Act’s provisions.

But Schumer backed Casey Jr. despite his pro-life stance – presumably in large part because in the 2004 election he received the largest number of votes in Pennsylvania’s history.

Turning the Democratic Party away from a staunch pro-choice position has not been an easy task. When Tom Roemer, a former congressman from Indiana, campaigned to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee, his platform included "tolerance of differing views on abortion,” Boyer reports.

Pro-choice activists lined up behind Howard Dean and against Roemer, and Dean won out.

But even a Democrat as liberal as Hillary Clinton may be reading the handwriting on the wall when it comes to her party’s unrelenting support for abortion-on-demand.
Regarding those who oppose abortion, Clinton said at a conference of Family Planning Advocates of New York State earlier this year:

"I, for one, respect those who believe with all their hearts and conscience that there are no circumstances under which any abortion should ever be available.”

As NewsMax reported in October, an analysis by the Third Way, a policy group for centrist Democrats, stated that if the party wants to return to power, Democrats, "could continue to support the core of Roe v. Wade while dropping their intransigence on questions such as parental notification and partial-birth abortion.”"