Democrats promote power to kill the powerless

America's Extremists Against Life Grow Ever More Inflexible

Speaking at Notre Dame in 1995, the late Bob Casey, two-term Pennsylvania governor, sadly disclosed: "For me, it is the bitterest of ironies that abortion on demand... found a home in the national Democratic Party. My party, the party of the weak, the party of the powerless."

A "home"? Make that a bastion impervious to assault, a position as hardened as a missile silo. Which is not to say that the party of Jefferson ("life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness") is sleepwalking. Democratic leaders have read the polls the media generally downplay-prompting them to reassure voters that they really aren't abortion extremists.

On the eve of the GOP convention, a New York Times/CBS News poll showed that Republicans (often castigated for being out of step with the nation's social temperament) are much closer to the electorate than their rivals. While 40% of delegates said abortion should be limited to rape, incest and threats to the mother's life, 37% of the public took this generally pro-life position (compared to 26% who said abortion should be available on demand).

The public is profoundly uneasy about the taking of human life in the name of the exercise of human rights.

The American Enterprise Institute polled Americans on whether 17 of this century's most important innovations have made life better or worse. Only four drew more of a negative than positive response-including nuclear weapons and legalized abortion (the latter was rejected by 42% to 34%).

Ultrasound has made the unborn child visible. Partial-birth abortion has brought home the horror. Infanticide and euthanasia have shown us the morgue at the end of the tunnel.

And so, while appeasing feminists (one of their core constituencies), the Democrats tried to soft-pedal abortion in their platform. There were the usual reality-avoidance cliches-"right of every woman to choose," "intensely personal decisions." In over 300 words, the word "abortion" appeared twice.

The platform defensively notes that the abortion rate is falling (but not enough to save one in four babies conceived in this country).

It then resorted to a ploy positively Clintonesque in the scope of its hypocrisy. While we're passionately pro-choice, we will graciously accept the votes of those who dissent, the party admitted. And, unlike those Republicans who won't even acknowledge the other side in their platform, the "party of inclusion" has spread out a welcome mat for all to see.

Silence Humane Voices Inside Party

Apparently, Robin Williams isn't the party's only comedian. At its 1992 convention, the party of inclusion wouldn't let Casey within a country mile of the podium for fear that (in the New York Tunes' words) "his sour note on abortion would disturb the symphony of unity."

Both New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman and then-Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld brought their pro-abortion message to delegates at the 1996 GOP convention. Whitman and Weld didn't speak in Philadelphia, but neither did Henry Hyde or any other prominent pro-lifer.

There was a pro-choices Ladies' night in Los Angeles. Caroline-Kennedy Schlossberg spoke glowingly of "reproductive choices." Rep. Nita Lowey (D.-N.Y), Kate Michelman (head of the National Abortion Rights Action League) and Kistina Kiehl (co-founder of Voters for Choice) devoted their entire speech es to a defense of the indefensible.

Then there's the Democrat's national ticket-a Roe v Wade Baptist and an Orthodox Jew who's cast 67 pro-abortion votes in the Senate.

Other than a few border-state congressmen who are hidden away in the attic every four years, there are no pro-life voices left in the Democratic Party. There's no one to tell them, as Casey did: "In a way, all of the talk about values misses the point. [Joe Lieberman take note.] Because we are talking about a thing of infinite value. Human life cannot be measured.... The value of everything else is weighed against it. The abortion debate is not about how we shall live, but who shall live."

The party of the "weak" and "powerless" has become the party with a weak heart and a guilty conscience. As the public becomes more sensitive to the plight of the unborn, Democrats become more inflexible.

Mr. Feder, who writes for the Boston Herald, is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Who's Afraid of the Religious Right?

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Sep 29, 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved