Via Kay Steiger at Pushback:
It looks like the Democratic Party dropped the "safe, legal and rare" part of its platform on choice. The new platform (PDF), which was just released, puts less of an emphasis on the controversial abortion reduction framework. The section on choice reads as follows:"The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.
The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to affordable family planning services and comprehensive age-appropriate sex education which empowers people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.
The Democratic Party also strongly supports a woman's decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs."
I'm personally really excited to see them mention the ability to pay, since the Hyde Amendment has been such a huge barrier for low-income women and women of color. This is more progressive than I might have expected.
Dana Goldstein at TAPPED shares her thoughts about the changes to the platform this year and how it represents the needs of women, and could even be called feminist document.
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Huzzah! I love it! It's logical and to the point. Good job Democratic Party.
Long time reader...first time commentor
Yet another feministing post that has left me with tears in my eyes.
Go Dems!
Makes me proud to be a democrat, if unofficially. Too bad I can't vote until 2 months after the election. :(
Makes me proud to be a democrat, if unofficially. Also makes me sad I can't vote until 2 months after the election. :(
What a fabulous surprise! I have become generally disenchanted by the Democratic party, many of whose constituents in federal office seem to pay lip service to progressive goals more often than vote for them, but the sentences above read to me like an incontrovertible, concrete statement of purpose. Hell yes.
i was glad to read the "choice" section of the platform, for both dropping the "safe, legal and rare" bullshit, as well as mentioning ability to pay. say what you will about the democrats, but this is really the only party that even pays lip service to the idea that women are people, much less acts like it.
The Democrats may be the only one of the "two" parties to "pay lip service to the idea that women are people," but the Green Party has feminism as one of their ten core values, and takes a very strong stance and abortion, gender equity, sexuality, etc....
I have only one thing to say about this:
But ff, the Green party doesn't have the power that the democratic party has. That's why this is a very good thing
Lana:
oh, I totally agree with that. This is definitely a great thing. I was just responding to rileystclair saying that the D's are the "only" party to treat women as people.
Not to be a pessimist but...
I'd much rather see the Dems take some action on this issue, than change their official platform. But then again, lipservice is better than no service?
Yay! I'm happy theyre taking a stand against the radical anti-choice nuts. Stating this as their platform is a breath of fresh air from the rights screwing with this countrys reproductive health access and rights.
Wonderful!
But will they actually act on it, or will it fall by the wayside when it comes time to stand up to conservative voters?
feminismforever, apologies. i meant the only major party.
I like the idea of removing ability to pay as a qualifier. I think its a mistake to remove 'safe, legal and rare' however. Do we not want it to be rare? Who favors millions of abortions?
There's a big difference between being pro-choice & pro-abortion. Is anyone really "pro-abortion"?
Sounds like the Dems have a poor grasp of the American electorate if they're suddenly dropping a formulation which has been successful for 15 years.
This makes me want to fangirl squee.
I have to agree @sly, why the drop in rare. It doesn't make political or logical sense to me. Who really want's abortion to be a non-rare event. Wouldn't it be far better for everyone if women didn't even have to get to the point of having an abortion?
I expand on this a little bit in a blog post here.
"Rare" is bullshit pandering to the right. With comprehensive sex education, affordable & available birth control, and support for women who choose to give birth (all of which is in their new platform) then abortion would be as rare as it ever should be. So what does "rare" need to be in there for? To convince right-wings or "moderates" that we might support things like the the "partial-birth" abortion ban or parental consent laws to make abortion more "rare", even though those laws hurt women and don't make it any more rare, because they either use another method or get an illegal abortion? Fuck that bullshit.
I'm very happy with the new platform.
' "Rare" is bullshit pandering to the right. '
No, "rare" is "pandering" to the middle. Which is to say the way to keep abortion legal in this country. Messaging counts. The reason the partial-birth abortion ban passed Congress is because Dems let the Right label it "partial birth abortion" instead of the correct term, "intact dilation and extraction".
Dropping 'rare' merely makes Dems seem out of touch with the mainstream...without doing anything to advance comprehensive sex education, affordable birth control, and support for single mothers. Dropping "rare", in fact, undermines the consensus on all these and abortion itself.
I'd be interesting to know the history of that part of the platform. If I'm not mistaking, leaders in for the National Organization for Women had a part in it.