Should the Democratic Party Reject Pro-Life Candidates?
During the 2016 election, the Democratic Party endorsed an end to a longstanding ban on federal funding for abortion—one aspect of a platform that NARAL Pro-Choice America praised as “the best ever for reproductive freedom.” After President Trump’s election, the Women’s March, which advocated for access to abortion, galvanized the party’s base. Now, however, the party is facing criticism from some pro-choice activists who say it’s sidelining their agenda.
Last week, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Ben Ray Luján refused to rule out helping pro-life Democrats win election to the House, saying instead that there will be no “litmus test” on abortion in 2018. The comments provoked swift backlash: Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL, denounced the approach as “an ethically and politically bankrupt strategy.” Feminist writers accused the party of selling out women and making “a disastrous mistake.”
The party’s willingness to support pro-life candidates isn’t novel, and prominent Democrats, along with the Democratic National Committee, the idea that there should be no litmus test. But that message is at odds with the direction pro-choice activists believed the party had been headed: They want to build on the gains their movement made in the platform by electing a firmly pro-choice majority to the House. Some activists fear, however, that the party is now treating abortion as a negotiable issue, rather than a core priority, as it attempts to broaden its appeal and win back seats in the midterm elections next year.
