What’s A Pro-Lifer To Do?
By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD
Cong. Dan Lipinski (D., Ill.) lost his bid for a ninth term in Congress in the Democratic primary last month. I don’t know the man and I don’t live in his district, but I was disappointed anyway. Why? Cong. Lipinski was one of the last staunchly pro-life Democrats in Congress.
That is a national tragedy. It’s also a tragedy for the party of my former allegiance. As many of you know, my background is as a working journalist and, oddly enough, as an active Democrat. Before becoming a lawyer and a deacon, I worked for several newspapers and after leaving the media served as a political apparatchik for the Democrats. I held elective public office and several appointed positions within the party.
Early on I felt the conflict between the top level of the party that supported abortion and those like myself who were pro-life. It took awhile, but long after I settled into a nonpolitical role, I started to take a good hard look at where my party was headed, and I didn’t like what I saw.
I think the first inkling was in the 1990s when I supported Bill Clinton, going so far as becoming a delegate for him. I wasn’t quite comfortable with his “safe, legal, and rare” rhetoric, but at least it allowed room for discussion. I was disappointed when the party prevented the pro-life governor of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey Sr., from speaking at the 1992 Democratic National Convention because of his pro-life views.
There followed a decided leftward movement by the party on not only abortion, but on many other social/moral issues that cemented my discomfort with the party. But the central issue, for me, was abortion. Finally, after the brouhaha over Obamacare and the demise of another pro-life Democrat, Michigan Cong. Bart Stupak, I had enough and left. Bill Clinton was the last Democratic presidential candidate for whom I voted.
Now, of course, the party is all-in for abortion. We have seen what has been done just in the past few years: abortion on demand, for any reason, and at any time. No exceptions. None. Not even if the child is born alive!
During this year’s presidential campaign I can only remember one candidate who said there was room for pro-lifers in the party; most of the rest, such as Mayor Pete Buttigieg, told us there was no room in that party for us. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said as much and several candidates opined that churches who do not support a “woman’s right to choose” should be penalized some way.
And now one of the last pro-life Democrats in Congress has been defeated in a primary election by a pro-abortion candidate who was deluged in contributions from the abortion industry. Lipinski explained the dilemma for the party in an interview with Lauretta Brown of the National Catholic Register:
“The issue is if you want to run for office as a Democrat and you’re pro-life, you know these groups — NARAL, Planned Parenthood, EMILY’s List, and others — you know that they are going to spend a lot of money to defeat you in the primary. Those groups are likely the reason that these Democrats running for president understand that they can’t have these groups opposing them. That’s why they take the extreme position on abortion.”
That says a lot about how the Democrats got into the position they are in right now, captured by the extreme left and with abortion being one of their central issues; they’re for it and we’re against it. Regardless of what many prominent Catholic politicians say, you cannot reconcile support for abortion with any doctrine or teaching of the Catholic Church and those teachings have been the same for over 2,000 years.
Lipinski made an interesting observation in that article. He says that one-third of the Democratic voters across the country self-identify as pro-life and “need to hang in there.” He encouraged them to stay and fight.
“[A]ctivist groups that are successful are the ones that focus exclusively on their issue, and it’s important that pro-life groups, the pro-life movement accepts people who are pro-life, no matter what their opinion on other issues may be — that it’s not going to exclusively be a Republican group and that they’re not just going to support Republicans; they will truly support Democrats who are pro-life. I think that’s one of the most important issues that we have to face in the pro-life movement.
“It’s difficult to do….There are issues that we won’t agree with some people on…but as long as they’re pro-life, we need to accept them. I think that’s the bottom line, and that’s the only way that we are going to be successful in the pro-life movement.” Unfortunately for the Democrats, and I have a lot of sympathy for them, until this issue at least becomes debatable, the party will occupy an extreme end of the political spectrum. And the fallout of their extreme lurch to the “abortion anytime” left is having a cascading effect on other issues that continue to push the Dems leftward, such as same-sex marriage, LGBT rights, including continuing acceptance of “trans” rights which hold that gender is a matter of choice, not biology.
When I grew up the parties occupied the center of the political field with the Republicans a little to the right and the Democrats a little to the left. Unfortunately, that gap is widening on both ends as extremists and ideologues tend to vie for control on both sides.
I was happy being a Blue-Dog Democrat. But now there aren’t any left. And in my opinion it has been the issue of abortion that is at the root of this political cleavage. It’s a shame, because unlike tax, labor relations, foreign policy, and other hot political issues, this one revolves around a fundamental moral issue: killing the innocent. In my mind you cannot compromise with that; it is the central issue of our times and it is ruining our political discourse.
Safe, legal, and rare is no longer in our political lexicon; no longer is there any attempt by the left to restrict abortion in any way. Too bad. Too bad for the babies, and too bad for the body politic.
There is a small ray of hope. There is an organization called Democrats for Life of America. They have a website. It has endorsed the re-election of Cong. Collin Peterson (D., Minn.), who is facing a primary challenge in August, as a “solid and reliable pro-life vote.” It has also criticized the Democratic Attorneys General Association as having “sold out to the abortion industry by imposing a litmus test for Democratic candidates.”
They also point out that newly re-elected Democratic pro-life Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana would probably have lost had he run away from his pro-life position. “Any abortion rights candidate would have lost,” they claim.
Time will tell if the blue dogs can make a significant comeback. Unfortunately, this isn’t the year.
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and hear him on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)