Religious Rightism in the Democratic Party has Consequences

Nevertheless, it has come to pass that the ostensibly prochoice Democratic Party and its prochoice Democratic president has failed to lead on abortion, while seeking to find common ground with a movement that was not interested. This should surprise no one, since the very public, public policy agenda of the antiabortion movement has been to erode access to the procedure under the rubric of abortion reduction primarily via state laws and regulations, but obviously in tandem with aggressive street level protests; harassment of patients and staff; and all in the context of violence and threats of violence.

Melanie Zurek, executive director of the Abortion Access Project told me in 2009, that while there were many proposals in play at the time regarding federal health care reform, none of them included expanding access to abortion services, which are actually unavailable in most counties in the U.S.  I wrote that the common ground agenda being promoted by elements of the Democratic Party at the time

“… required turning a blind eye to the reality that access to abortion care in the U.S. is receding, and that their approach mainstreams a fundamental concept of anti-abortion strategy and related terminology. They did this by recasting contraception and sex education as if their primary purpose was to achieve the goal of reducing the number of abortions.”

Little has changed since then, except that it is now crystal clear that the antiabortion forces, (with a very few exceptions), never bought the idea that sexuality education and contraception were legitimate ways to reduce the need for abortion.  And that is one of the core problems with the common ground initiative.  There was little common ground to actually be found, as a quarter century of previous common ground discussions had shown.

Rev. Debra Haffner of the Religious Institute wrote at the Huffington Post in 2009,  

“Abortion reduction” is promoted by those who support restricting abortion access, through such measures as parental notification, waiting periods and mandatory sonogram laws, or by making it illegal outright. No true progressive would advocate any strategy to make abortion services more difficult to obtain. For progressives, reducing the need for abortion means comprehensive sexuality education, family planning and contraceptive services to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancy. Yet conservatives insist on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and argue that many common means of contraception are abortifacients.

… I have fought for sexual justice my entire life. It is a progressive value I hold dear. So I say to my colleagues across the religious spectrum: Join me in supporting sexual justice, or stop calling yourself progressive.

Since then, the erosion of access has continued and the abortion reduction advocates have continued to call themselves progressive.

This week, The Los Angeles Times, reported on state level antiabortion legislation:

Few initiatives are aimed at expanding access to reproductive health services, the institute said.) Fifteen of the bills introduced this year have been enacted into law, and more than 120 others have been approved by at least one legislative chamber.

We are always monitoring a huge number of anti-choice laws,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which challenges antiabortion laws. “But what we are seeing this year is some of the most extreme restrictions, and they are passing at a rather sharp clip.”

That is probably because of several factors, including the prominence of the abortion issue in last year’s health care debate, as well as gains by Republicans, both at the state and national level, in November’s election, advocates on both sides say.

For her part, Jodi Jacobson highlights Obama’s failure as president to lead on reproductive rights and details for example, how candidate Obama was against the Hyde Amendment before he embraced it as president — and even signed an executive order to underscore the banning of all federal funds from providing abortion care, as part of the deal to get his health care bill passed.  If this were not enough, Jacobson adds:  

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