Regardless of how we got to this point in the fight to maintain a women’s right to choose, the gauntlet has been thrown.
Will the Democrats seize this moment and actually fight? A quick look at history tells us “no”. When the somewhat shocking news of a SCOTUS draft to overturn Roe v. Wade dropped by Politico yesterday, establishment Dems were quick to express their outrage. Unfortunately, their rage was not reserved for SCOTUS. In what has become a somewhat predictable pattern (and lacking any credible avenue to blame Russia), Dems are blaming this on progressives who didn’t vote for the jilted Hillary Clinton.
This completely ignores the Democratic party’s own lack of action when it had all the necessary tools to stick a fork in this issue, and questions the actual sincerity of the party at all. Blaming the GOP is fruitless, because they have never hid their agenda. Since the influx of the evangelical movement, they have always wanted this to happen, and have carefully strategized to make it happen.
The reality is that the Democrats have had 49 years to codify Roe v. Wade, and instead of doing that, knowing full well that the GOP was gunning for it, they drag it out every election cycle to rally and fundraise off of their base.
“In 2007, [President Barak Obama] promised Planned Parenthood that “the first thing I’d do as president” would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which effectively codifies Roe v. Wade. Now he says the bill is ‘not my highest legislative priority.‘” stated the New York Times in May, 2009.
In 2009, Obama had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and chose not to use it to codify Roe v Wade. Obama should have also fought tooth-and-nail to fill Scalia’s seat, but he did not. The result of his lack of backbone was that we got Justice Neil Gorsuch, whose votes are not just conservative but aggressively reactionary, reflecting overt disdain for progressive precedent.
But, this isn’t simply an Obama issue; it is a Democrat party issue.
When Clinton ran for President in 2016, she chose Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. “In a 2007 NARAL scorecard, Kaine was described as a “mixed-choice” governor and his state got an F grade thanks in part to a number of laws and other policies restricting access to abortions. Two years later, Kaine upset both local and national reproductive rights groups by signing a law that authorized the sale of customized “Choose Life” license plates. Kaine argued he was supporting free speech, but his critics complained that the law would fund pro-life organizations.”
Nancy Pelosi has chosen to try to straddle the line between conservatives and liberals, going so far as courting conservatives. Pelosi told WaPo in May, 2017, “The Democratic Party should not impose support for abortion rights as a litmus test on its candidates because it needs a broad and inclusive agenda to win back the socially conservative voters who helped elect President Trump.
President Joe Biden also has a history of being anti-choice. In a 1974 interview with the Washingtonian, Biden said, “I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.” Although his personal position on abortion as a staunch Catholic has been pretty consistent, he has been politically inconsistent in his position. He supported the anti-choice Hyde Amendment until 2019 when it was politically expedient for him to change his position.
There is no conceivable way that Biden didn’t know that this assault on women’s rights was in the works. He and Pelosi should be working the phones and bending every arm they have to in order to get Congress to finally codify Roe. This is not the time for fundraising, this is the time for action.
Biden said in 2019 while on the campaign trail, “that if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade while he was president, he would “push” legislation to keep it legal.” He also said he would “open to” repealing Hyde.
The time has come. Empty promises cannot be allowed to stand.
It is time for the entire Democratic Party to put up or shut up.