Anti-Choice Democrats? Yep... That's A Thing

In the last few days we've been pointing out Democrats who back Wall Street's bid to help the GOP chip away at Dodd Frank protections and DCCC 2016 recruits who are NRA allies. Yesterday The Hill ran an op-ed on Anti-Choice Democrats, although the author, Kristen Day, the executive director of Democrats For Life of America, was savvy enough to not name the Democrats they back. Most of them know being anti-Choice is a disadvantage in Democratic primaries, as slimy Chicagoland Blue Dog Dan Lipinski has been learning in recent months. The only anti-Choice Democrats featured prominently on the anti-Choice Democrats website are reactionary Blue Dogs Lipinski and Colin Peterson and an Arkansas candidate named Paul Spencer who we've already covered and who they crow "has a track record of fighting for ethics in government, for transparency, and fighting for life. Paul has publically [sic] stated that he will decline DNC money rather than change his pro-life stance. This and other stands against influence-buying have led to the slogan "Can't Buy Paul." The DNC doesn't give congressional candidates money.

Anyway, the op-ed says there's an anti-Choice March coming up and claims between a quarter and a third of Democrats are anti-Choice. She puts a Democrats sheen on it: "We are Pro-life Democrats because we are committed to protecting both the lives of unborn children and the lives of those who have already been born-- and not merely through charity. We believe in the dignity and worth of all, especially the poor, the vulnerable, the persecuted, and the abandoned. And we believe in an active government that safeguards that dignity and protects human rights. We are pro-life because we believe in the defense of all innocent human life, and we are Democrats because they are the party that, since the New Deal, has best stood up for the well-being of working-class and middle-class Americans."

[W]e are not going anywhere. Every March for Life, we are there marching-- and that’s not going to change. Every year, people come up to us-- Democrats, Republicans, Independents-- and tell us to keep fighting the good fight and that they, too, believe in both defending life and social justice for all.

And many pro-lifers recognize an obvious fact: The pro-life movement cannot possibly succeed without bipartisan support. A more bipartisan pro-life movement is the key to passing critical pro-life legislation and locking in support for these measures long-term. It is encouraging to see that the current leadership of the March for Life recognizes this need for a bipartisan pro-life movement.

So, yes, pro-life Democrats are different from the many conservatives who populate the pro-life movement and shape its image. And we will continue to be different. We will work together with all other pro-lifers to protect unborn life whenever possible.

But we will also be the ones constantly pushing for more assistance for pregnant women, stronger efforts to reduce poverty, and greater economic security for all Americans. We will push our fellow pro-lifers to be consistently pro-life-- to follow through on the common values we profess.

We will do this because we are pro-life Democrats: pro-life, Democrats, and unwilling to abandon our most cherished principles.

Blue America supports pro-Choice candidates, not anti-Choice candidates. When Tom Perriello first ran for Congress in 2008 he fed me a line of bullshit about how he would never vote to take away the right to choice for any woman and Blue America ignored warnings from others who told me he's a liar-- and we supported him. Were we in for a shockeroo when the issue came up in Congress and he voted anti-Choice. Maybe he thought it would help him with conservatives in his district. It didn't and it turned off enough real Democrats that they didn't turn out for him in the 2010 midterm. So: single termer. Every single candidate you'll find by clicking on the ActBlue thermometer on the right is pro-Choice. None of them are anti-Choice. We learned from our horrible Perriello experience into figuring out who's lying to us to get our endorsement the way he did.