Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin has registered his frustration with the Democrats’ abortion extremism, wondering aloud why pro-lifers are no longer welcome in the party.
“As the presidential primary shifts to New England, it’s sad to note that all of the major Democratic candidates are pro-abortion, supporting even partial-birth abortion,” wrote the redoubtable Bishop Tobin in a tweet Wednesday.
“Where are pro-life Democrats supposed to turn? Or are pro-life voters not welcome in the Democratic party?” he continued.
In early 2017, DNC chairman Tom Perez established an abortion litmus test for the party, effectively ruling out the possibility of “pro-life Democrats.”
“Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” Perez said at the time. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”
“At a time when women’s rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country,” he added, “we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice.”
At that time, Perez became the first chairman of the party to require absolute ideological purity on abortion rights, promising to only back Democratic candidates who embrace a woman’s right to choose to eliminate her child.
The official 2016 platform of the Democratic Party has been dubbed “the most pro-abortion platform in history,” and the President of NARAL Pro-Choice America Ilyse Hogue called the 55-page document “far and away the most progressive platform on reproductive health, freedom and justice in the history of the party.”
Democrat presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg recently confirmed the party’s intransigent pro-abortion position, effectively ruling out the possibility of pro-life democrats.
“I am pro-choice, and I believe that a woman ought to be able to make that decision,” Buttigieg said in a Fox News town hall in Iowa when questioned about the party’s lack of diversity regarding abortion.
In response, Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, threatened to withdraw support from candidates who would exclude pro-life Democrats from the party.
“We’ve had enough,” Ms. Day told Catholic News Agency (CNA) following her personal encounter with Buttigieg, who said he would be willing to live without the support of pro-life voters in order to maintain his total support for abortion-on-demand.
In her interview, Day expressed her chagrin over the Democrats’ slavery to the abortion industry, noting that pro-life Democrats are simply “fed up.”
These presidential candidates “are so afraid of the abortion lobby” that they will make no room for pro-life Democrats, she said, because “they’re afraid that they’re going to lose all their money and support.”
“I just wanted to know if he [Buttigieg] thought there was room for us in the party. And he doesn’t,” she said.
The party’s “abortion extremism,” she said, “is not going to be a good long-term strategy for them.”
Many Catholics have also registered their exasperation with the Democrats’ alliance with abortion industry, echoing the position of Bishop Tobin.
“I am convinced that the Democratic Party has moved so far away from moral decency that it’s impossible for any Catholic to make the case, in a reasonable way, for why it’s okay for him/her to remain a Democrat, and vote for Democrat politicians,” wrote Catholic author Shane Schaetzel in 2019.
“How could any Catholic be supportive of a party, and politicians, who advocate and facilitate the wholesale slaughter of innocent human life?” he asked.