It’s time for pro-life policy makers to stop playing defense on issues related to life and abortion. Though it is not as widely reported as it should be, the fact is that policy proposals that would restrict abortion have the vast majority of Americans behind them.
And the numbers really aren’t even close.
Leaving aside the labels “pro-life” and “pro-choice,” there remains a steady consensus of 8 in 10 Americans who believe that abortions should at a minimum be limited to the first trimester. A majority would limit it to at most cases of rape, incest or to save the life of a mother.
These numbers come from a July, 2016 poll conducted by Marist, the same polling agency used by The Wall Street Journal, McClatchy and NBC News.
The poll revealed that six out of ten self-identified pro-choice Americans believe that abortion should be limited to – at most – the first three months of pregnancy.
With an overwhelming majority of Americans in favor of strong restrictions on abortion, it’s time for politicians to change the fact that current U.S. law does not reflect the hearts and minds of its own people regarding life.
The nearly unregulated state of abortion today is at odds with mainstream America. There should be serious attention given to the fact that pro-choice politicians in general, and one of the nation’s two major political parties in particular, are pushing an extreme agenda that will only widen this divide.
Yet many pro-choice Americans don’t realize that pro-choice politicians generally hold a position that calls for almost unrestricted abortion. As a result, they remain woefully unaware of what they are truly voting for this fall.
The Democratic Party platform and Hillary Clinton are now advocating for a platform and policies supported only by the extreme fringe – and far out of touch with mainstream America.
Shockingly, they actually support legal abortion basically right up until the time of birth – something only about one in 10 Americans agree with. And the Democratic platform would eliminate the prohibition of using taxpayer dollars to pay for most abortions by repealing the Hyde Amendment. Well over four in 10 Democrats and pro-choice Americans disagree with such a move – as do almost two-thirds of Americans overall.
Of course there are some pro-choice Republicans too, and not all Democrats have embraced these extreme positions.
Leaders such as Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, and Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Donnelly of Indiana continue to stand strong against their own party and these radical policies. They should be applauded and other moderate Democrats should be emboldened to speak up about this issue.
But despite the convictions of pro-life candidates and lawmakers representing the majority of American’s opinion on abortion on the campaign trail this fall, the Democratic candidate for President has only pushed harder against the mainstream and doubled down on an agenda that most Americans would never vote for themselves. Her running mate says he agrees that abortion is wrong, but won’t impose his view – the overwhelming majority view – on the rest of us.
In June, the Supreme Court struck down common sense abortion clinic health regulations. In response, Clinton called the Supreme Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt “a victory for women across America,” even though it didn’t make abortion “safe” it simply stopped abortion facilities from being held to the same standards as other surgery centers. Again, this diverged completely from the view held by the great majority of Americans.
The same Marist Poll cited earlier found that about 8 in 10 Americans strongly disagreed with the recent Supreme Court’s reasoning. 78 percent say that abortion clinics should meet the same standards as other surgery centers, and 70 percent of Americans want doctors who perform abortions to be required to have hospital admitting privileges.
To be clear, my organization holds that any abortion – at any time during a pregnancy – is one too many. We work tirelessly for the day when all Americans are convinced that no woman would ever want to choose to abort her child.
The extremely hard cases, which are also extremely rare, are almost always accounted for in the legislation, and pro-life politicians propose bill after bill with the backing of an American consensus. Pro-choice politicians keep saying “no.” Only the most extreme proposals are acceptable to them.
These politicians are out of touch and hopelessly detached from the morality and will of the American people.
This week, March for Life Action released a commercial making the case to the American people that we should not be afraid to embrace this winning issue with an American consensus behind us.
We have won the hearts and minds of Americans. Now it is time to make that consensus a legislative reality.