Why Democrats need more pro-life Senators

Michael Hayes, a political science professor at Colgate University, makes a compelling argument for the election of more pro-life Democrats to Congress in a essay featured on Democrats.US. Here are a few paragraphs from the column which explains why ending the partisan polarization on abortion is so critical.

In recent weeks, however, progressive columnists and bloggers have begun to question the wisdom of nominating Casey to oppose Santorum. Casey, like his father, is unequivocally pro-life, which makes him unappealing to pro-choice Democrats who, it should be noted, provide a major source of campaign funds. Perhaps because he is pro-life, Casey recently took a public position in favor of the Alito Supreme Court nomination, saying that the objections raised against Alito were insufficient to warrant a no vote. Although Casey’s support for Alito was both qualified and reluctant, it nevertheless pitted him against Senate Democrats, who overwhelmingly opposed Alito’s nomination. A Casey win over Santorum in Pennsylvania would be good for the Democratic Party, however. The Democrats desperately need to shed their image as the pro-abortion party. Because this is such a high-profile race, and Casey is so strongly identified as pro-life, a Casey victory would show voters across the country that it is possible to be both a strong Democrat and pro-life.

The Democrats’ image as a pro-abortion party reflects their failure to behave like a real political party on this issue. American political parties have historically been moderate and inclusive, aggregating a wide variety of interests, offering at least something to almost all groups, and presenting themselves as speaking for all the people rather than for any one narrow interest. In so doing, the parties integrate interest groups into broad coalitions that are necessarily concerned with winning elections. When an interest group is fully integrated into a party’s coalition, it recognizes the need to temper its more extreme goals, subordinating its narrow objectives to the broader interest of the party in winning elections.

Above all, the intensely partisan nature of the contemporary abortion issue hampers the development of good public policy by taking the abortion issue out of the normal process of bargaining and compromise that characterizes other issues. Where one party is pro-life and the other is pro-choice, there is no arena in which the two contending sides are forced to sit down and work out their differences. Rather, both sides cling to extreme positions, raising the stakes in presidential and congressional elections to unhealthy levels. Thus the nation would be better served on the abortion issue by a Democratic coalition that combined both pro-life and pro-choice elements. See full article at http://tinyurl.com/kw6dy