The Democratic Party is planning to adopt an even more extreme platform on abortion this year.
In the party’s 2016 proposed platform, Democrats added language calling for a repeal of the Hyde Amendment and full-fledged taxpayer funding of abortion, according to the Daily Caller. The Democratic Party platform already supports legalized abortion on demand for any reason up until birth.
Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton also has promised that she will make every effort to overturn Hyde and force taxpayers to fund abortions, if elected.
A press release from the Democratic Party on Saturday announced the change: “The platform also vows to oppose, and seek to overturn, all federal and state laws that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment.”
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Here’s more from the announcement:
The platform goes further than previous Democratic platforms on women’s reproductive rights. It champions Planned Parenthood health centers and commits to push back on all Republican efforts to defund it. … It also strongly supports the repeal of harmful restrictions that obstruct women’s access to healthcare around the world, including the Global Gag Rule and the Helms Amendment, which bars US assistance to other countries that provide safe, legal, abortion.
The Hyde Amendment prohibits direct taxpayer funding of most abortions and has done so since the late 1970s. Upheld by the Supreme Court, the Hyde Amendment is now a target of abortion advocates who have moved from pro-choice to pro-abortion — forcing Americans not only to accept unlimited abortions before birth but also to pay for them.
Recently, a coalition of 61 pro-abortion groups sent letters to the two major political parties urging them to force taxpayers to pay for abortions.
Taxpayer funding for abortion is extremely unpopular in the United States at large, even among people who identify as pro-choice. A new Marist poll shows that more than two-thirds of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, including a majority of Americans who identify as pro-choice.
According to the poll, women are more likely to oppose taxpayer funding of abortion than men, a fact that challenges abortion activists’ framing of resistance to abortion expansion as an attack on women.
The new survey shows the percentage of Americans opposing taxpayer funding of abortion (68 percent) has risen significantly since 2009, when 61 percent of Americans opposed public financing of abortions.
The Democratic Party platform on abortion is a stark contrast to the Republican Party’s stance on the issue. The Republican Party platform recognizes “that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”
The Republican Party supports a human life amendment to the Constitution, recognizing unborn babies as human beings with equal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. It also opposes taxpayer funding for abortion and groups that do abortions. Read the full pro-life platform here.
Several strong pro-life leaders are in charge of drafting the 2016 Republican Party platform. The Hill reports U.S. Sen. John Barrasso will chair the Republican platform committee at the national convention in July. Barrasso, who represents Wyoming, has a 100-percent pro-life voting record from the National Right to Life Committee. His appointment signals a strong party commitment to restoring unborn babies’ right to life.
