Bill Clinton Was Right
Democrats should take a page from Bill Clinton’s playbook.
The 42nd president famously formulated the following phrase: “Abortions should be safe, legal, and rare.” In 1992, he told the Congressional Women’s Caucus, “We have to remind the American people once again that being pro-choice is very different from being pro-abortion.”
Exactly twenty years later, the word “rare” was removed from the Democratic party platform. While Hillary Clinton echoed her husband’s message during her 2008 presidential campaign, she avoid the line four years later. Had she stuck to the “safe, legal, and rare” framework, it’s possible she would have swung just enough votes to beat Trump in the Electoral College in 2016. Most recently, in the 2020 presidential election, only Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Rep. Joe Sestak and Marianne Williamson would say abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.”
People rightly complain about how extremist Republicans seek to ban all abortions or throw women in jail. But Democrats, by supporting elective abortions pass the point of viability, are also alienating a wide swath of America. When the New York Times surveyed all the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates as to whether they “support restrictions after 24 weeks” (roughly when a healthy fetus can survive outside the womb), only Rep. Sestak said yes. When Rep. Gabbard tweeted that she objected to third trimester abortions unless a mother’s life is at risk, activists condemned her.
Soon after I published my last Substack newsletter on this topic, Pew Research Center released one of the most comprehensive surveys on abortion attitudes ever compiled. (Pew interviewed 10,441 people between March 7-13.) It turns out that few Americans believe abortion should be legal in all circumstances, and even fewer think that it should be prohibited outright. According to the survey, 65 percent of Democrats said abortion should be legal at some points and (this is key!) illegal at other times. Meanwhile, 79 percent of Republicans said it should be illegal at some points and (this is key!) legal at some points.
There is a middle ground. The vast majority of Americans are comfortable with abortions early in pregnancy but troubled by elective abortions at the very end of pregnancy. Democratic politicians would be smart to speak to those voters who have mixed feelings on the topic. Keep in mind what Barack Obama told a Christian magazine in 2008:
“I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that “mental distress” qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions.”
Democrats lost voters when they took the legitimate issue of criminal-justice reform and turned it into “defund the police.” They also run the risk of losing voters if they focus all their energy on being the party of elective abortions at all points of pregnancy with no restrictions.