Abortion Activists Want to Defeat This Democrat Congressman Just Because He’s Pro-Life
Democrat Congressman Dan Lipinski is under attack by his own party because he believes unborn babies deserve to be protected from abortion.
As abortion activists demand that the Democratic Party become fully pro-abortion, pro-life Democrats like Lipinski are being pushed out.
Several of the Illinois congressman’s peers now are backing his primary challenger, Maria Newman, who supports abortion on demand. Illinois Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutierrez, both pro-abortion Democrats, endorsed Newman in an unusual move this week, according to The Hill. The election is March 20.
Here’s more from the report:
It’s unusual for incumbent members to endorse a primary challenger to a fellow member. …
Progressives have been targeting Lipinski — a staunch anti-abortion lawmaker — and have sought to boost Newman’s candidacy in the Chicago-area district.
Those groups have targeted the congressman’s voting record which includes voting against the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and voting to freeze funding for Planned Parenthood. He was also one of only six House Democrats who voted in 2013 for a ban on abortions after 20 weeks.
Newman also has the support of several pro-abortion groups, including the abortion extremist group NARAL.
Lipinski has a pro-life voting record. One of his most recent key votes was for the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which prohibits abortions after 20 weeks when unborn babies can feel pain.
A co-chair of the pro-life group Democrats for Life, Lipinski is scheduled to speak at the March for Life this week in Washington, D.C.
NARAL blasted Lipinski in a press release soon after the March for Life announced him as a speaker.
“Lipinski is doubling-down on his bid to ban abortion and subjugate women to second class citizens. Despite the ‘D’ next to his name, Lipinski consistently pushes an extreme right-wing agenda that couldn’t be more out-of-touch with the needs of hardworking Illinois families,” spokesman James Owens said.
The matter is just another sign of the Democratic Party’s increasingly radical stance on abortion. In 2016, the DNC adopted a platform calling for full support of abortion for any reason up to birth as well as taxpayer funding of abortions. Both are widely unpopular positions among the general public.
Party leaders also have been debating whether to stop supporting pro-life Democrats like Lipinski altogether.
The debate really flared up last spring after NARAL criticized DNC Chair Tom Perez, Sen. Bernie Sanders and others for supporting Heath Mello, a Nebraska Democratic mayoral candidate who also has a pro-life voting record. Amid pressure from abortion activists, Perez described abortion as a “fundamental value” and said every Democrat should support it. Afterward, Perez faced some pushback from members of his own party.
Later, Tom Steyer, the single largest donor to the Democratic Party in recent years, announced that he will give money only to pro-abortion candidates.
These moves put the party out of touch with a strong majority of its own voters.
Democrats for Life estimates more than 23 million Democrats in the U.S. are pro-life. Last year, Pew Research found that 28 percent of Democrats say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. Marist/KofC polling also found that 23 percent of Democrats consider themselves pro-life and 40 percent say abortion is morally wrong.
Polls consistently show that most Americans do not want their tax dollars paying for abortions either. A Politico/Harvard University poll in October 2016 found that a majority of voters oppose taxpayer funding for abortions. Just 36 percent of likely voters supported the issue, while 58 percent opposed it. These findings are consistent with previous polls from various groups.
Most Americans also oppose most abortions and want laws to limit abortions or make them illegal. According to a recent Gallup poll, just 29 percent of Americans want unlimited abortion up to birth.
