The Democrats' platform on abortion is sure easy to sum up: not safe, not rare -- and always legal! If you tuned in to the Fox News last night for the Bernie Sanders-Hillary Clinton debate (and based on the ratings, you probably didn't), there couldn't have been a starker contrast with the GOP candidates, who are competing to make life a bigger priority in their campaigns. And based on the political landscape, it's no wonder. Apparently, the last seven years of President Obama's extreme policies have resulted in fundamental change -- of people's minds!
Americans are more pro-life than ever, though you certainly wouldn't know it from two of the six remaining candidates. Surveys, state laws, and even the turnout for a blizzardy March for Life all point to the country's rejection of Obama's radical agenda, which Clinton and Sanders clearly share. Asked Monday if they support "any restrictions" on abortion, especially late-term abortion, the senator from Vermont replied, "It is wrong for the government to be telling a woman what to do with her body... I am very strongly pro-choice. That's my view." Of course, his non-answer answer didn't address voters' real concerns, which are that Democrats believe in unlimited abortion, underwritten by taxpayers -- right up until the moment of birth. Interestingly enough, Bernie didn't mind invoking life later, claiming that "being a human being" guarantees one the right to health care (unless, apparently, you're the unborn kind of human being).
Secretary Clinton, the official choice of "pro-choice" Planned Parenthood, was next. "Do you think a child should have any legal rights or protections before it is born?" Bret Baier pressed. Clinton responded that we needed to put the question in "context." "Right now," she started, "the Supreme Court is considering a decision that would shut down a lot of the options for women in Texas, and there have been other legislatures that have taken similar steps to try to restrict a woman's right to obtain an abortion." Actually, what the Supreme Court is considering is whether women have a right to a safe abortion, which the clinics refuse to give them by fighting common sense regulations. States like Texas, who care about women enough to demand higher standards, aren't the villains here. If abortionists were as concerned about mothers' health care as they insist they are, these laws wouldn't even be necessary!
But Hillary wasn't finished. "Under Roe v. Wade," she said, "which is rooted in the Constitution, women have this right to make this highly personal decision with their family in accordance with their faith, with their doctor." If abortion is in the Constitution, then it must be in the same version as same-sex marriage. Let me spare you the trouble of looking for it, because it doesn't exist. "It's not much of a right if it is totally limited and constrained. So I think we have to continue to stand up for a woman's right to make these decisions, and to defend Planned Parenthood, which does an enormous amount of good work across our country."
Like Sanders, she didn't outline a single restriction, so Bret pushed harder. "Just to be clear, there's no -- without any exceptions?" Pausing, she replied, "No -- I have been on record in favor of a late pregnancy regulation that would have exceptions for the life and health of the mother." (Notice, Clinton said "health" of the mother -- not life of the mother, which is much harder to exploit. "Health of the mother" gives clinics a much bigger loophole to cite things like depression as a justification to abort.)
Unfortunately, the former senator racked up quite a stunning pro-abortion record, even voting against consensus bills like the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. And while her extremism may earn her Planned Parenthood's support, it won't win her America's. According to a January survey from the Knights of Columbus, an overwhelming majority of Americans (81 percent) support significant restrictions on abortion. And that includes women (at 82 percent)! Unlike Hillary, eight in 10 think abortion should be limited to the first three months of pregnancy (which is well shy of the 20-week ban Congress she opposes). Another six in 10 think abortion is morally wrong -- including, believe it or not, a third of "pro-choicers." This kind of abortion fanaticism may fill the Democrats' bank accounts, but it won't fill the ballot box.
