Democrats Seek to Avert Abortion Clashes

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Democrats Seek to Avert Abortion Clashes
Leaders Back Bills to Increase Aid for Family Planning, Pregnancy Support
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 21, 2007; Page A05

Eager to avoid a resumption of the culture wars, the new Democratic leaders are trying to tiptoe around the abortion issue by promoting legislation to encourage birth control and assist women who decide to proceed with unwanted pregnancies.

Democrats acknowledge that they alienated many social conservatives and churchgoing voters during years of combat with Republicans over the explosive issue of reproductive rights, and they want to change their emphasis to woo some of those voters back into the fold.

On the opening day of the 110th Congress on Jan. 4, for instance, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), an abortion foe, introduced a bill to increase funding for family planning and to improve access to emergency contraception. The measure has been endorsed by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a champion of abortion rights, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), a leading Democratic presidential prospect.

These and other initiatives are a far cry from previous Democratic efforts that drew strong conservative opposition, including funding for abortions for women in the military serving overseas and U.N. family-planning programs in Third World countries....

During the past decade of Republican rule, Congress became a battleground for opposing forces in the abortion debate. Nearly 150 bills and amendments have been offered with the aim of restricting the procedure. Democrats and pro-abortion-rights Republicans blocked most of those measures, but in the process they alienated a vital group of voters -- religious moderates who support, in principle, the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide but who are morally squeamish about terminating pregnancies....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/20/AR2007012001425.html

[Erika]

1. About the time the Democratic party wants to outlaw abortion

I'm out of the party.

[rodeodance]

3. There are some Senators----will are 'fors" in the Dem. party, It is scary

to me. but, I do not think it will come to that.

[rodeodance]

2. Hil Clinton put this forward last summer already. Prevention/education

is Key.

And they are right-----clashes will do us NO good.

[omega minimo]

4. Womens Rights are Human Rights-- Dems need to quit being "squeamish" about that

"but in the process they alienated a vital group of voters -- religious moderates who support, in principle, the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide but who are morally squeamish about terminating pregnancies...."

Those "religious moderates" "morally squeamish about terminating pregnancies" need to be educated to recognize the difference between their "moral squeamishness" and womens rights.

:thumbsup: