Pro-life members of the Democrat Party are denouncing its 2016 platform that fully embraces abortion on demand and vows to work to expand taxpayer funding of abortion.
“This platform’s language just says (to abortion opponents) you are no longer welcome,” said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life, reports USA Today. “This has been the general message pro-life Democrats are receiving across the country.”
Day said the radical pro-abortion language in the platform is diminishing the size of the Democrat Party. She added that some Democrats have called her to say they will not vote for Hillary Clinton, the presumptive nominee, because of her extreme pro-abortion stance.
Clinton — who has been endorsed in the primary by Planned Parenthood and much of the abortion industry – has said that unborn babies have no constitutional rights and has promised to work toward a repeal of the Hyde Amendment to ensure an expansion of taxpayer funding of abortion.
The Hyde Amendment is a longstanding provision that prohibits the use of federal taxpayer funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or the extremely rare situation of pregnancy endangering the life of the mother.
In a press release, The Democrat Convention committee said about its specific inclusion of Planned Parenthood’s abortion business in the latest draft of its platform, released July 1:
The platform goes further than previous Democratic platforms on women’s reproductive rights. It champions Planned Parenthood health centers and commits to push back on all Republican efforts to defund it. The platform also vows to oppose, and seek to overturn, all federal and state laws that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment. It also strongly supports the repeal of harmful restrictions that obstruct women’s access to healthcare around the world, including the Global Gag Rule and the Helms Amendment, which bars US assistance to other countries that provide safe, legal, abortion.
Planned Parenthood’s president Cecile Richards noted that abortion, or what her abortion business calls “comprehensive reproductive healthcare,” is “central” to the Democrat Party’s platform for the first time, reported the Washington Examiner.
“We also applaud the platform for affirming Planned Parenthood’s critical role in communities in the face of unprecedented attacks on reproductive health at the state and congressional levels, and the recognition that reproductive healthcare is core healthcare for women, men, and young people,” Richards added.
Among those outraged by the extreme nature of the language about abortion and the Hyde Amendment in the Party’s platform are Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND).
“That’s crazy,” Manchin told The Weekly Standard. “It’s something that I know most of the Democrats in West Virginia and most West Virginians would not agree with. I don’t either.”
Casey wrote a letter to the platform committee calling upon its members to reconsider the language on abortion and, specifically, the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, reports The Hill.
“This is a consensus-based policy that has, for many years, prohibited the use of federal funds to pay for abortion,” Casey wrote, adding that the Hyde Amendment illustrates “that many Americans remain morally opposed to abortion, and do not wish to see their tax dollars go to pay for abortion.”
Spokeswomen for Donnelly and Heitkamp voiced those senators’ objections to the platform language on abortion.
“Senator Donnelly has long supported and continues to support the Hyde Amendment, and as a pro-life Senator believes all life is sacred,” said spokeswoman Sarah Rothschild.
Similarly, a spokeswoman for Heitkamp said the senator “also supports the Hyde amendment and a state’s right to mandate parental consent for minors or restrict partial birth abortions, except when medically necessary to protect the life of the woman.”
Though Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) has described himself as a pro-life Catholic in the past, the Huffington Post reported that Kaine has moved toward a pro-abortion position since he has been considered a primary contender for the vice president’s position on the Democrat ticket.
In 2009, as governor of Virginia, Kaine signed a bill that created the “Choose Life” license plates that raise funds for pro-life causes. Kaine now says, however, that – in his professional life – he is a strong advocate for abortion rights.
“I have a traditional Catholic personal position, but I am very strongly supportive that women should make these decisions and government shouldn’t intrude,” Kaine told CNN. “I’m a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don’t need to make people’s reproductive decisions for them.”
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