UPDATE: On December 4, Lowey defeated Kaptur for the slot. The Democratic House caucus’ Policy and Steering Committee favored the New York Democrat by a vote of 36-10.
“The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” – St. Luke 16:8.
With the election safely behind us, the media have lost all interest in reporting on abortion extremism. This is most doleful, since congressional Democrats’ infighting over a coveted leadership position has degenerated into one of the most extreme pro-abortion bidding wars in recent memory.
Congresswoman Nita Lowey, D-NY, argues that she deserves the ranking Democratic seat on the House Appropriations Committee, because Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur is insufficiently pro-abortion.
Kaptur, a Catholic Democrat representing a blue collar district in Toledo, has only a 70 percent voting record with NARAL Pro-Choice America. Lowey has an unswerving, 100 percent voting record against the unborn.
Although she is the most senior member of the powerful committee, Kaptur angered Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi by once challenging her for her leadership position and by allegedly lacking a strong commitment to abortion-on-demand.[1]
Among her unforgivable trespasses, Kaptur briefly stood with Bart Stupak to hold up the passage of ObamaCare, until they received a worthless executive order promising not to fund abortion. Stupak admitted this summer he was “perplexed and disappointed” that the president had not kept his word.
One would be tempted to write off the episode as intraparty positioning, but the issue of Kaptur’s abortion voting record surfaced earlier this year, when redistricting forced Kaptur into a primary battle against fellow Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich.
The former Cleveland mayor is a one-time pro-life Catholic who flip-flopped before running for president in 2004. Since his Road away from Damascus experience, Kucinich has confined himself to advocating for life on other planets.
Seeing the abortion issue arise for the second time in a year, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Robert Bennett told the Toledo Blade, “The Democratic Party has become the party of California and New York, the two coasts, and anyone from the commonsense Midwest is not eligible for leadership positions in the Democrat Party.”
But he rather misses the point, as Republicans are wont to do on abortion.
The Democratic Party is a slave to the abortion industry, and any deviation from the party line – no matter how halting, half-hearted, or transitory – is punished to the greatest extent possible.
The Democrats’ approach to abortion could not contrast more with that of the Republicans.
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Pro-lifers are told – explicitly in some cases – to “hold their nose” and vote for a candidate who shares some portion of their views, publicly, during election years. “Better half a loaf than nothing,” laugh political pundits as religious leaders line up to endorse candidates like Rudy Giuliani, who opposed banning partial birth abortion.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Planned Parenthood, where 70 percent is not sufficiently servile to the forces of death. And somehow the media has convinced the less gifted portion of the electorate that Republicans are the extremists on the issue.
Some of the more shrewd members of the party have misgivings about being the handmaid of the abortion industry, but the abortion movement has skillfully deployed its political resources to keep the party on a short leash.
Pro-abortion groups neither settle nor acquiesce; they demand. They are willing to put their (substantial) financial resources behind candidates who support them – and to ruin any politician or charity that turns on them.
Pro-lifers’ success will only match their public support when they learn a few lessons from Planned Parenthood.
Cross-posted at TheRightsWriter.com.
ENDNOTES:
1. When some called for Pelosi to step down, NARAL praised her “decision to remain at the helm of a strongly pro-choice Democratic leadership team” in the House. “We will need stalwart leaders like Leader Pelosi and others to block anti-choice lawmakers from undoing the progress we’ve made to protect our reproductive freedoms and privacy,” said NARAL President Nancy Keenan. “We look forward to continuing this valuable work alongside her.” The press release praised Pelosi’s “decision to remain at the helm of a strongly pro-choice Democratic leadership team in the House.”