Kristen Day

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What's next for Democrats for Life? Questions of faith and politics after Roe v. Wade

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What's next for Democrats for Life? Questions of faith and politics after Roe v. Wade

As outraged Democrats jumped on social media after the fall of Roe v. Wade, some symbolic voices in the party offered careful words of celebration.

"Let's Stand Together and Support Women and Children!!!", tweeted state Sen. Katrina Jackson, the African-American Democrat who sponsored Louisiana's trigger bill that includes potential 10-year prison sentences for those who perform abortions.

Jackson's added calls for "womb to tomb" legislation raising wages for childcare workers, funds to fight human-trafficking and new state programs helping families.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, also a Democrat, posted several Twitter messages, including: "My position on abortion has been unwavering. I am pro-life and have never hidden from that fact." He stressed that this Louisiana bill included clauses protecting procedures in cases of "medical futility" and ectopic pregnancies and added that he believes it needed "an exception to the prohibition on abortion for victims of rape and incest."

The Democratic Party, in its 2020 platform, remained committed to "protecting and advancing reproductive health, rights and justice," while promising to "fight and overturn federal and state laws" limiting or opposing abortion rights.

But in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, crucial debates about abortion laws will move to state governments. Some have already passed bills protecting unborn children and others have taken equally strong stands defending abortion rights.

Many states are located somewhere in between, noted Kristen Day, leader of Democrats for Life of America. In these states there will be tense negotiations over legislation -- such as "heartbeat bills," usually defined as abortion bans after six weeks of gestation -- that were impossible under court actions linked to Roe v. Wade.

While "pro-life" Democrats are an endangered species inside the D.C. Beltway, there are "hundreds of us active in state governments," said Day, reached by telephone. Many of these Democrats are linked to Black and Latino churches -- grassroots workers that national party leaders may not want to attack or alienate.

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Donald Trump and Pete Buttigieg find that discussing abortion is always difficult

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Donald Trump and Pete Buttigieg find that discussing abortion is always difficult

President Donald Trump and Democrat Pete Buttigieg recently offered radically different stands on abortion, as both attempted to reach out to Catholic and evangelical swing voters trapped between their parties.

Trump made history as the first president to speak in person at the national March for Life, which marks the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. 

"All of us here understand an eternal truth: Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God. Together, we must protect, cherish and defend the dignity and the sanctity of every human life," said Trump, who for years backed abortion rights and Planned Parenthood. He insists that his views have evolved, like those of Republican hero Ronald Reagan.

"When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God's creation. ... When we watch a child grow, we see the splendor that radiates from each human soul. One life changes the world," he said.

While commentators stressed that Trump attended the march to please his conservative evangelical base, this massive event in Washington, D.C., draws a complex crowd that is hard to label. It includes, for example, Catholics and evangelicals from groups that have been critical of Trump's personal life and ethics, as well as his stands on immigration, the death penalty and related issues.

Videos of this year's march showed many signs praising the president, but also signs critical of his bruising brand of politics.     

A Facebook post by a Catholic priest -- Father Jeffrey Dauses of the Diocese of Baltimore -- captured this tension. Telling pro-lifers to "wake up," Dauses attacked what he called Trump's "callous disregard for the poor, for immigrants and refugees, for women. … This man is not pro-life. He is pro-himself."

Meanwhile, Buttigieg -- an openly gay Episcopalian -- did something even more daring when he appeared at a Fox News town hall in Iowa. One of the toughest questions he faced came from the leader of a network of Democrats opposed to abortion.

"Do you want the support of pro-life Democrats?", asked Kristen Day, president of Democrats for Life. "Would you support more moderate platform language in the Democratic Party to ensure the party of diversity and inclusion that really does include everybody?" 

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It's hard to avoid religion when fighting about 'fourth-trimester' abortions

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It's hard to avoid religion when fighting about 'fourth-trimester' abortions

Before "Game of Thrones" infighting rocked Virginia Democrats, before the Michael Jackson moonwalk press conference, before a KKK and blackface photo surfaced from his Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook, Gov. Ralph Northam made some candid remarks about abortion on WTOP's "Ask the Governor" radio show.

The now embattled governor's words raised many religious, scientific and philosophical questions and he all but guaranteed that what his critics are calling "fourth-trimester abortion" will remain a hot-button issue in American public life.

A proposed Virginia bill on late-term abortions, he said, would allow termination in cases where an unborn child is "not viable" outside the womb.

"In this particular example, if a mother's in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen," said Northam, a former pediatric neurologist. "The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."

Northam is "greatly misinformed about what this bill would do. … It is infanticide," Democrats for Life leader Kristen Day told EWTN News.

Concerning bills of this kind in Virginia (tabled on a 5-3 vote in committee) and New York, she added: "I'm hearing from more people who say that they can't vote for Democrats if they continue to push this. … This abortion extremism is continuing to push Democrats out the party." She predicted large numbers of Democrats at Virginia's March for Life on April 3, sending this message: "We want to be a state that protects women, supports women and provides support for women to carry their pregnancies to term. That's what we stand for as Democrats."

To no one's surprise, President Donald Trump used Twitter to jump into this controversy, attacking Northam for making the "most horrible statement on 'super' late term abortion. Unforgivable!"

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Is there still room for pro-life Democrats in their own political party?

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Is there still room for pro-life Democrats in their own political party?

On the subject of abortion rights, the 2016 Democratic Party platform language prepared for candidates was as firm as ever.

"Democrats are committed to protecting and advancing reproductive health, rights, and justice," it noted. "We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion -- regardless of where she lives, how much money she makes, or how she is insured."

Most of the party's candidates agreed on other implications of that statement, from legal third-trimester abortions, taxpayer funded abortions and gender-selection abortions, which usually means aborting unborn females.

Most Democratic candidates backed that platform -- but not all.

Thus, it stunned some Democrats, especially in heartland and Bible Belt states, when Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez drew another bright line defining who participates in the work of his party.

"Every Democrat, like every American," he said, "should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health. This is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state." In fact, he added, "every candidate who runs as a Democrat" should affirm abortion rights.

Needless to say, these were fighting words for Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America.

"I am glad this conversation is taking place," she said, in a telephone interview earlier this week. It would help if the party's chairman "sat down and talked with us, because we are obviously feeling left out.