DEMOCRATS IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE DOOR:

Presidential Hopefuls to Attend Abortion Rights Event (Adam Nagourney, 1/15/03, NY Times)

The six Democratic candidates for president have agreed to appear on the same stage for the first time in the campaign to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision removing restrictions on abortion.

The quick agreement by the Democratic candidates to attend the fund-raising dinner next Tuesday reflects a growing consensus among Democrats and some Republicans that abortion rights could prove to be a central issue in the 2004 presidential election and perhaps even in the Democratic primaries, because of some differences among the Democratic candidates on the issue.

The six Democrats are attending the event for Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group formerly known as the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, to mark the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court three decades ago.

There's been much written lately about how Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign kickoff in Philadelphia, MS and the various visits by Republicans to Bob Jones University are their way of signaling white Southerners that the Party still supports Jim Crow. Let's accept that proposition for the moment, because the event above marks the Democrat equivalent, as all of the Party's presidential hopeful's march before the abortionist lobby to pledge their eternal support--Abortion today; abortion tomorrow; abortion forever--for a woman's right to kill her baby.

There is though a significant difference between these exercises. Even the Right's most adamant critics are unlikely to argue that a Ronald Reagan or a George Bush had any intent to restore segregation when they made their controversial visits, but each of these Democrats would, if elected and given the chance to appoint new Supreme Court justices or veto things like partial-birth abortion and gender-specific abortion legislation, be personally responsible for the continuance of abortion.

There's also a fair degree of difference between segregation, repulsive as it was, and abortion, which, rather than simply treat fetuses as sub-human, has resulted in the death of 45 million of them. It is sometimes argued that comparisons of abortion to segregation or the Holocaust are unjustified because abortion is allowed by the Supreme Court, fetuses are "not human beings" and because there is something like a plurality in favor of abortion, which reflects a moral murkiness about the matter. Of course, Jim Crow and the Holocaust were likewise premised on the belief that their victims were not fully human, were supported by legal structures, and were popular with at least sizable portions of the public.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 15, 2003 10:30 AM