By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
NEW YORK, August 15, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-Abortion leader Francis Kissling has published an article acknowledging that the new Democratic Party platform favors the cause of abortion and sex education, even more so than in previous years.
Kissling notes that the new platform “derives its moral authority from ‘a woman’s right to choose safe and legal abortion’”, unlike older ones that spoke merely of “privacy.”
She is also delighted that the platform makes no mention of making abortion “rare”, and for the first time mentions “sex education”, which is frequently used to promote contraception, abortion, “alternative sexual lifestyles” and extra-marital sex.
“A notable omission is the Clintonian phrase ‘safe, legal and rare,’ replaced by a more honest and modest goal of reducing unintended pregnancy through better health care, family planning and comprehensive sex education. Sex education was not even mentioned in the old Platform,” Kissling writes.
Kissling dismisses the claim recently made by some Obama supporters that the new platform has pro-life elements: “The progressive pro-life desire to see the Platform commit to reducing abortions was subtly undercut; this year, the Platform merely ‘recognizes’ that sex ed, family planning and good health care will have the effect of reducing the need for abortion.”
“In all other areas, the Platform uses strong language of commitment: the Party ‘strongly and unequivocally supports Roe’ and ‘strongly supports access to affordable family planning services’,” she writes. “Even the Platform’s support for pre and post natal care and income support for women who have children is properly framed as a right on its own and not as a means to reducing the need for abortion.”
Kissling is a past president of “Catholics for a Free Choice”, an organization repeatedly condemned by the Catholic Church for deceiving Catholics into believing that the pro-abortion position is compatible with their religion.
In addition to its statements about the new Democratic Party platform, the article is also notable for the clear tone of annoyance aimed at the growth of a “progressive pro-life” movement within the Democratic Party.
Kissling’s article is entitled, “Progressive, Pro-Life, and Full of Yourself”, which takes the rare step of acknowledging the term “pro-life” instead of the abortion movement’s label of preference – “anti-choice.”
“The biggest disappointment the PPers (Pro-Life Progressives) acknowledged about the Platform was that it did not moralize about abortion. But (Jim) Wallis took solace in the belief that the plank makes room for people with ‘moral convictions about abortion’ – as if those of us who support the right to choose have no moral conviction that undergirds our respect for choice,” Kissling says.
After decades of struggling to achieve social legitimacy for abortion, Kissling and fellow pro-abortion leader Kate Michaelman published a statement earlier this year expressing their frustration at having lost the moral high ground in the debate over what they call “reproductive health” – a euphemism that includes abortion on demand – and noted that the pro-life movement is gaining ground.
“In recent years, the anti-abortion movement successfully put the nitty-gritty details of abortion procedures on public display, increasing the belief that abortion is serious business and that some societal involvement is appropriate. Those who are pro-choice have not convinced America that we support a public discussion of the moral dimensions of abortion,” they wrote in January of this year.
Related Links:
Progressive, Pro-Life and Full of Yourself
https://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/08/14/progressive-prolife-and-full-yourself
Abortion’s Battle of Messages
https://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kissling22jan22,0,7688545.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
Previous LifeSiteNews Coverage:
Abortion Leaders Admit that Pro-Life Arguments are Convincing
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jan/08012407.html
Abortionists Admit Humanity of Unborn; Now Claiming Right to Feel Good About Killing
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/feb/06022810.html