The Patriot Post® · Abortion: 'Safe,' Legal ... and Free?
Hillary Clinton doesn’t think abortion should be rare — she thinks it should be free! And based on the latest polling, that isn’t exactly endearing her to voters. Her and her Party’s radical call to repeal the Hyde Amendment, the only thing standing between taxpayers and government-funded abortion, wasn’t just unpopular with Democratic leaders like Senators Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Bob Casey (Pa.), and Joe Donnelly (Ind.) but Americans too.
A survey by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found a surprisingly low amount of support for the idea, which — to the dismay of some in the president’s party — was included in the Democratic National Platform when it was formalized in July. “We will continue to oppose — and seek to overturn — federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion,” the DNC’s text states, “including by repealing the Hyde Amendment.” But based on the latest polling, Harvard researchers confirmed what others already have — that Americans are decidedly against financing the death of unborn children. Only 36 percent agree with Hillary’s fanatical approach to abortion, which is to putting Americans on the hook for the destruction of innocent life.
At an event of the summer, Clinton made no secret of her far-Left turn. “I believe we need to protect access to safe and legal abortion,” she said, “not just in principle, but in practice… [As] long as we have laws on the book [that ban taxpayer-funded abortion], it’s harder for low income women to exercise their full rights.” But guess what? Those laws are overwhelmingly popular. And on a host of issues — including the Hyde Amendment — Democrats differ. Some of the staunchest supporters of abortion — including President Obama and Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D) — at least give lip service to the wall between the barbaric practice and taxpayers. As usual, Hillary Clinton is going where the money is, not where the country is. She’s quite literally banking on the campaign support of Planned Parenthood to overcome any hurdles this extremism might pose to her presidential hopes.
Kristen Day, the head of Democrats for Life, is part of the 63 percent who don’t side with the party on the issue. “This would force those who object to abortion to contribute to what we believe would be government-funded killing,” she wrote in the Los Angeles Times, and it would eradicate policies that have already saved hundreds of thousands of lives.“ Two million people, to be exact. That’s how many children the Hyde Amendment has saved, based on the number-crunching by the Charlotte Lozier Institute. No wonder Democrats like Day are frustrated by the lack of common sense and common ground within the voters. As most people agree, it’s one thing to make abortion legal — and quite another to force Americans to pay for it.
"The Democratic Party’s abortion stances have already caused many to leave the party,” Day warns, “and many more will drop out because of the platform wording. The percentage of extreme abortion rights advocates is increasing in the party, but only because the total number of Democrats has shrunk to its lowest level since the Hoover administration.” Unfortunately, this is just one area of policy where the two parties strongly clash. To see the others, check out FRC Action’s platform comparison video, which outlines the starkest contrasts between a vote for Donald Trump and a vote for Hillary Clinton.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.