This is the accurate account of the democrats position on abortion. Quit evading and lying Rexie
OPINION
Democrats are proving to be the real extremists on abortion
Democrats are salivating over the chance to portray Republicans as anti
abortion extremists in the wake of the anticipated overruling of Roe v. Wade . But their unwillingness to accept limits on late-term abortions shows they are the real extremists.
Third-trimester abortions are incredibly unpopular among most Americans. The most recent
Economist-YouGov poll, for example, found that only 25 percent of all Americans, and 21 percent of independents, agree that abortion should “always be legal” with “no restrictions.” Yet Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is scheduling a vote this week on a bill that would effectively make abortion
legal without restrictions for the duration of a woman’s pregnancy. Even though he knows the
legislation is doomed to fail because of the Senate filibuster, Schumer is pushing his entire caucus to support the highly unpopular proposal, for which opponents will be able to tar them.
Schumer isn’t alone among Democrats in making themselves politically vulnerable. Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee for Ohio’s Senate seat, dodged a
direct question from Fox News host Bret Baier on whether Ryan would support any restriction on abortion by saying he would leave it up to the woman and her doctor. White House press secretary Jen Psaki similarly swerved when Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked about President Biden’s position. She repeatedly
refused to commit Biden to supporting any limit on abortion, instead referring Doocy to the president’s prior statements without offering any specifics. In politics, if you’re avoiding a clear answer to a question, it’s usually because you don’t want the public to know what it is.
It might seem strange that Democrats are contorting themselves into pretzels to avoid saying they oppose late-term abortions. But it makes complete sense considering that about half of Democrats believe in no abortion restrictions at all. That total rises to 60 percent among liberal Democrats, according to the most recent
ABC News-Post poll, and is surely even higher among the abortion rights activists in the party who are most passionate about the issue.
Democratic candidates and officeholders, therefore, must tread carefully if they want to make the purported extremism of Republicans an issue. If Democrats express support for their base’s view, they give Republicans a potent issue to use against them. If they express support for the view backed by most Americans and almost all swing voters, they anger that base. Hence the abortion shuffle played out before audiences every day.
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That’s just not going to fly, especially in critical races. Republicans will force this question at every opportunity and throw every vote in favor of the Senate bill this week in Democrats’ faces. The more a Democrat tries to waffle, the more foolish they will look. It’s pretty clear to most Americans that a child who can live outside of a mother’s body shouldn’t be killed. The fact that too many Democrats can’t say that without fear of getting ambushed by the left speaks volumes about today’s Democratic Party.
It’s not just me, a conservative Republican, who sees this. Matthew Yglesias, a prominent progressive writer and abortion rights supporter, recently said as much in
his newsletter. He notes that
more than 90 percent of all abortions are performed in the first trimester and that Democrats could preserve access for the vast majority of women who want abortions if they sacrificed the extreme views that so many Americans abhor.
That Democrats are preparing to utterly ignore this counsel is instructive. They are pushing no-limit abortion policy either because they are afraid of their base or because they believe in it. Either way, that’s not the leadership Americans want.
This is the same dilemma that sunk Democrat Stephen A. Douglas’s chance to become president in the 1860 election. Douglas tried to finesse the explosive slavery issue by arguing that people in each territory should be able to decide whether to permit slavery. He was caught between Northern popular opinion, which thought slavery was wrong, and Southern opinion, which favored it. Douglas tried to placate Southerners by saying he
didn’t care whether slavery was voted up or down and to satiate Northerners by saying he would
vote to admit a new state with a constitution banning the odious practice. Instead, his dodge lost the North and the South and helped elect Abraham Lincoln.
Republicans this fall should be as persistent as Lincoln in forcing their foes to choose on abortion between the American majority and the Democratic base. If they do, they should be the political winners, against all expectations, on the abortion debate.
Henry Olsen is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Democracy Dies in Darkness
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