I come to urge my party to be open to debate and discussion; to move away from a lock-step litmus test which advocates abortion on demand in an effort to reach a broader national consensus.
The national Democratic Party has embraced abortion on demand. I believe this position is wrong in principle and out of the mainstream of our party's historic commitment to protecting the powerless.
Abortion is the ultimate violence.
Indeed, an entire generation of Americans has grown to adulthood since the Roe decision of 1973, which held that the right to choose an abortion was a privacy right protected by our Constitution.
For almost twenty years, abortion policy in America has been controlled by the courts.
A vast abortion industry, generating some half a billion dollars annually, sprang into existence in the wake of Roe and Doe.
From the beginning, each human embryo has its own unique genetic identity.
Advocates of unrestricted abortion do not want the public to focus on these undeniable facts of fetal development, but the facts cannot be ignored.
To establish justice and to promote the general welfare, America does not need the abortion license.
Abortion is a question of choice.
Our party has always been the voice of the powerless and the voiceless.
If our country is to reach a workable solution to the abortion issue, the Democratic party must be open to and tolerant of opposing views.
By rejecting abortion-on-demand, we can move our party back to the mainstream.
In this generation, the issue pressing that question on our consciences is the issue of abortion.
Abortion on demand, throughout the full nine months of a pregnancy, for virtually any reason, became public policy in the United States of America. No other developed democracy had, or has, such a permissive abortion regime.
I am fairly certain that my abortion position hurt me, because in a Democratic primary, where turnout is relatively low, liberal voters turn out in disproportionately large numbers and thus exercise a disproportionate influence on the outcome.
Who belongs to the community of the commonly protected?
We must make children and families a national priority.
As I discovered, even the governor of a major state who holds pro-life views can be denied a hearing at his party's convention without the national media protesting it.
The abortion license has not brought freedom and security to women. Rather, it has ushered in a new era of irresponsibility toward women and children, one that now begins before birth.
