Democratic Party platform promises Planned Parenthood funding, tax dollars for abortions, target sidewalk counselors
The Democratic Party’s 2016 platform pledges to “stand up” for Planned Parenthood, fund abortion nationwide and around the world, vows to “overturn” state and federal restrictions on abortion, proposes cracking down on pro-life sidewalk counselors, and affirms abortion as “core” to people’s “health and well-being.”
Delegates in Philadelphia to the Democratic National Convention formally adopted the 55-page-long platform.
The platform the “constitutional rights” as “safe and legal abortion” which is “core to women’s, men’s, and young people’s health and well-being.”
“We will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers, which provide critical health services to millions of people,” the document says.
Planned Parenthood supporters at protest 2011 photo/S. MiRK via wikimedia commons
“We are committed to creating a society where children are safe and can thrive physically, emotionally, educationally, and spiritually,” the platform’s section on “Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice” concludes.
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who was endorsed by Planned Parenthood early in the primaries, has promised “more federal funding for Planned Parenthood” if she is elected.
“We will continue to oppose—and seek to overturn—federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment,” which prohibits abortion funding except in the cases of rape or incest.
This tactic will use the term “discrimination” to battle and allow low-income women to have their abortions paid for by taxpayers.
Pro-life groups may be increasingly concerned over the implied threat of greater federal prosecution of sidewalk counselors, as Democrats say they will “combat any acts of violence, harassment, and intimidation of reproductive health providers, patients, and staff.”
An 84-page “resource guide” given to FBI agents in 2010 described pro-life “pamphlets targeting staff” and “noise disturbance” as forms of “intimidation.”
NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue – who served on the platform committee – called this year’s document “far and away the most progressive platform on reproductive health, freedom and justice in the history of the party.”
“If platforms are statements of collective values and a blueprint for candidates to follow once elected, the choice could not be more clear,” said Hogue, who is scheduled to address the DNC this afternoon, as is EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock.
Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, objected that her own party “would force those who object to abortion to contribute to what we believe would be government-funded killing, and it would eradicate policies that have already saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”
“There is no further left for the Democratic Party to go,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser.
photo/Pro-Life Action League
[…] last week, during the Democratic National Convention, Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion supporters made it clear that their platform will not only […]