There’s no question that Democrats support unrestricted abortion until birth.
There’s no question that Democrats support unrestricted abortion until birth.
D uring last night’s Republican primary debate, GOP hopefuls drew attention to the Democratic Party’s extreme position on abortion. This was a shrewd political move: Few Americans — indeed, few Democrats — support allowing abortion until birth for any reason.
But following the debate, progressive commentators rushed to insist that no one, and certainly not any Democrat, is in favor of allowing unlimited abortion. “No one supports abortion until birth,” tweeted Jen Psaki, formerly of Biden’s White House staff and now at MSNBC.
Another Democrat commentator put it even more explicitly: “Democrats don’t support abortion up until the day of birth. Every single Republican candidate on the debate stage is lying to the American people right now. Disgusting.”
Katie Couric gave the topic a pseudo-journalistic spin: “Worth noting that fewer than 1% of abortions occur in the third trimester,” she tweeted. Of course, the percentage is far less interesting than the actual number of such abortions, about 12,000 per year if Guttmacher estimates are to be believed. That’s more than the annual number of gun homicides in the U.S. each year.
And left-wing media figures were making similar claims even before last night’s debate. “I have not talked to a Democrat who wants abortion on demand until time of birth,” CNN host Dana Bash said in a segment a few weeks ago.
But of course, none of these claims square with the facts. The 2020 Democratic Party platform explicitly affirms a universal right to abortion and doesn’t reference a single abortion limitation acceptable to the party. “We believe unequivocally . . . that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion,” the platform states.
It also promises to “fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to reproductive health and rights” — in other words, to block any and all limits on abortion, including gestational-age limits. The platform embraces federal funding for abortion businesses, supports repealing the Hyde amendment that precludes taxpayer dollars from directly reimbursing abortion providers, and promises to “protect and codify the right to reproductive freedom.”
That last pledge is a reference to the federal Women’s Health Protection Act, supported for years by most Democrats in Congress, which not only would create a fundamental right to abortion at the federal level with no limits but also would abolish any state law protecting unborn children at any stage of pregnancy.
Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate have spent the past several years blocking the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would require doctors to care for babies who survive an attempted abortion procedure the same way they’d care for any infant of the same gestational age. It’s hard to imagine how a party that supposedly doesn’t support abortion until birth might justify opposing such a commonsense policy. And they continue to oppose the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would prohibit most abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation. (Earlier versions of the bill had a 20-week limit.)
Indeed, progressive commentators would be hard-pressed to find a single national Democratic politician — apart from West Virginia senator Joe Manchin — willing to support a single protection for unborn children. During the 2020 presidential primary, nearly every Democratic candidate explicitly refused to name any limits they’d place on legal abortion. When then-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard said she believed abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare” and advocated limits on abortion in the last three months of pregnancy, she faced significant backlash from her fellow Democrats.
In short, there is no evidence whatsoever that Democrats support limiting abortion in any meaningful way, and there is substantial evidence to the contrary. The falsehoods progressives offered in response to the GOP debate reveal how essential it is for Republicans to continue emphasizing just how radical Democrats are on abortion. Evidently, Democrats themselves are aware of just how unpopular their extreme position is — it’s no surprise they’re unwilling to defend it.