January 27, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – South Bend, Indiana Mayor and Democrat presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg rejected an appeal this weekend for token language in the party platform representing pro-life Democrats, reiterating his support for virtually-unlimited abortions throughout the entirety of pregnancy.
During a candidate town hall hosted by Fox News, Democrats for Life executive director Kristen Day asked Buttigieg whether he wants the support of pro-life Democrats and would “support more moderate platform language in the Democratic Party to ensure the party of diversity and inclusion really does include everybody,” the Washington Examiner reports.
“I'm not going to try to earn your vote by tricking you. I am pro-choice, and I believe that a woman ought to be able to make that decision,” Buttigieg answered.
“But I know that the difference of opinion that you and I have is one that we have come by honestly. And the best that I can offer…is that, if we can't agree on where to draw the line, the next best thing we can do is agree on who should draw the line. And in my view, it's the woman who is faced with that decision in her own life,” he added.
“I support the position of my party that this kind of medical care needs to be available to everyone,” he said. “And I support the Roe v. Wade framework that holds that early in pregnancy, there are very few restrictions and later in pregnancy, there are very few exceptions. And again, the best I can offer is that we may disagree on that very important issue, and hopefully we'll be able to partner on other issues.”
“I cannot imagine that a decision that a woman confronts is going to ever be better medically or morally because it's being dictated by any government official,” he claimed. “And that's just where I am on the issue.”
Buttigieg’s answer did not leave Day satisfied.
“The Democratic platform contains language that basically says that we don't belong, we have no part in the party because it says abortion should be legal up to nine months; the government should pay for it,” she said after the event. “And there's nothing that says that people that have a diversity of views on this issue should be included in the party.”
The Democrat Party platform has grown more uncompromisingly pro-abortion over the past decade, dropping language claiming to believe abortion should be “rare” and making more overt its support for direct taxpayer funding of abortion. Over the past year, the vast majority of House Democrats have gone so far as to oppose legislation.
It’s unlikely, however, that making the Democrat Party more palatable to pro-life voters would advance the cause of life, however. While individual lawmakers can technically vote against their party’s official position on any given issue, their party affiliation decides which party’s leaders have majority control over the House or Senate. This influences legislation’s fortunes in various ways, including scheduling votes, setting procedural rules, controlling committees, and more.
“Remember, the Speaker of the House ultimately determines the legislative agenda and if the party committed to elective abortion controls the chamber, its candidate for speaker will inevitably be pro-abortion,” Life Training Institute president Scott Klusendorf has argued. “Nevertheless, these pro-life members vote for their party’s candidate for speaker, which all but guarantees that pro-life bills never see the light of day. In most cases, then, they aren’t reforming their party’s pro-abortion stance; they’re enabling it.”
It is on these grounds that Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has justified her own endorsements of rare “pro-life Democrat” candidates, assuring supporters in 2018 that the re-election of Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) would contribute to securing “a pro-choice gavel when we win the Congress.”
Buttigieg’s pro-abortion platform also includes appointing pro-abortion judges to the Supreme Court and making the abortion drug RU-486 available over the counter. As mayor of South Bend, he vetoed Women’s Care Center’s re-zoning application to build a pro-life pregnancy center near the site of a proposed abortion center, and has largely dodged questions about the discovery of thousands of babies’ corpses on the property of a deceased area abortionist. In addition, he has misrepresented Scripture as suggesting that “life begins with breath,” for which his own brother-in-law Rhyan Glezman labeled him “a “modern-day pharisee.”
Buttigieg currently places fifth in RealClearPolitics’ national polling average of the Democrat primary, with 7.1 percent.