As I pointed out in the Sunday’s Sermon directly below this one: making abortion legal actually decreased the number of abortions a country has, and abortion numbers have gone nowhere but down in almost every country that has legalized it. So with last Sunday marking the anniversary of the STILL controversial decision of Roe v. Wade, I can’t help but notice that abortion seems to be making a stealth comeback in the national debate lately, except that it’s all on one side of the issue.
In the presidential primary, both Romney, Gingrich, and even Ron Paul have signed ridiculous pledges promising to bring an end to abortion in America if they are elected president (right, because it’s a dictatorship where they alone have authority to do so). Also-ran candidates like Bachmann and Rick Perry also-thought they could beat a dead horse and somehow catapult to victory on this issue that now holds extremely limited appeal to independents. And Rick Santorum has gone one-note crazy on the subject of abortion, talking almost exclusively about it and gay marriage as if he were George W. Bush in 2000 and the country was still economically healthy enough to give a shit about such non-essential “culture warrior” issues. [Sidenote: I’ve often noticed how cultural wedge issues are frequently between people who think there is only one culture and those who are capable of seeing more than one.]
Then you have the frightening statistic that 2011 saw more abortion restrictions than any year since Roe v. Wade. So either it’s all a coincidence that all red states and most purple ones started restricting abortions in unprecedented ways or the Tea Party turned out to be a stealth abortion movement only pretending to give a shit about the deficit and bank bailouts. I also guess that “small government” and “unrestricted capitalism” are only talking points instead of things they actually believe in because it sure seems like they want big government in stripping voter rights away from minorities, abortion rights for women, and any rights from gay people.
Yet all this info only brings me back to my title question which is “Why Are Democrats So Quiet in Backing Abortion?” One side keeps raising hell about abortion and runs on it as if that alone would get you elected in Alabama (wrong, it needs to be that AND hating Mexicans) but the other side doesn’t say a word. Often times, Democrats look downright embarrassed when cornered on the issue of abortion rights, and I can’t remember the last time I heard a Democrat running for president unequivocally say “Damn right I support legal, safe abortions that people will have even if they’re illegal. I don’t want a single American locked up for violating yet more laws when we already have an exploding prison population. Maybe if my opponent supported teaching kids about safe sex and letting women have easy access to birth control, there’d be no need for any abortions.”
By the Democrats (or at least the ones that are not in some totally safe district in California or Vermont) never speaking up and seeming proud of their stance on abortion, it makes it look like it’s something to be ashamed of. If one party won’t shut up about the issue, and I know first hand that they won’t as it is seemingly the only justification for why a 25k a year Alabamian would vote for tax cuts for millionaires, then why won’t the other party speak at all? I’m not just asking rhetorically because I know that having safe, legal abortion clinics has probably saved the lives of millions of mothers, and I just wished the leaders of my party seemed to also know it.