Terry McAuliffe’s extreme abortion stance

OPINION:

Bill Clinton-era Democrats promised abortion that was “safe, legal, and rare.” Decades later, Democrat Terry McAuliffe is out of touch with Virginians, joining a chorus of his party’s extremists to purge that more moderate approach and push for abortion that is dangerous and frequent. 

Mr. McAuliffe supports abortion anytime, anywhere, for any reason, paid for by taxpayers—including at the moment of birth. Befitting Mr. McAuliffe’s extreme worldview, Democrats in 2012 stripped the word “rare” from its party platform, opting instead for “safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay.” 

Mr. McAuliffe rejects the views of most Americans, as Gallup reports 67% of Americans support either some or complete restrictions on abortion. Just 32% of Americans told Gallup they believe abortion should be legal “under any circumstances.” Translation: by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans reject Mr. McAuliffe’s abortion policies. 

Mr. McAuliffe wants an amendment to enshrine a right to abortion in Virginia’s constitution. That amendment would likely result in the invalidation of reasonable statutes limiting abortion in Virginia. It’s no wonder Mr. McAuliffe wants to expand abortion access in Virginia—it’s part of his pay-to-play scheme. During his first bid for governor, Mr. McAuliffe received nearly $2 million in campaign donations from the pro-abortion lobby. Mr. McAuliffe obeys his paylords by then pushing for taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.

Mr. McAuliffe called Virginia House Delegate Kathy Tran’s late-term abortion bill “common sense.” He said if he were governor, he would not veto Tran’s bill, which would allow a baby to be aborted as it was being born.

As Politifact reported on Ms. Tran’s disturbing bill, Mr. McAuliffe supported Ms. Tran’s bill “that would have eased Virginia’s abortion restrictions for all pregnancy stages” and weakened the protocols and standards physicians must follow during late-term (known as third-trimester) abortions.

In 2018 (most recent data year available), there were 16,474 abortions reported in Virginia, up seven percent from the previous year. Abortions declined after Republicans in the Virginia legislature passed various informed consent laws, including 24 hour waiting periods, information on alternative options, hospital facility requirements, and abdominal ultrasound requirements. They were repealed by Gov. Northam on Good Friday 2020.

Declining abortions over Mr. McAuliffe’s term has nothing to do with Mr. McAuliffe and everything to do with a Republican General Assembly. These laws have all been repealed since Democrats took back control of the General Assembly. 

Mr. McAuliffe claims to care for the vulnerable, particularly women of color. Yet Mr. McAuliffe mega-donor Planned Parenthood was founded in 1916 by Margaret Sanger, a racist eugenicist who believed Black women should limit reproduction because they were inferior to White women. Ms. Sanger’s racist legacy lives on: the abortion rate for Black women is almost five times that for White women. 

Last year, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York finally acknowledged this disturbing fact, removing Margaret Sanger’s name from the Manhattan Health Center “as a public commitment to reckon with its founder’s harmful connections to the eugenics movement.” When given a chance to respond in 2013 to POLITICO about Ms. Sanger’s heinous beliefs, Mr. McAuliffe’s campaign declined to comment.

Mr. McAuliffe and his abortion bankrollers ignore a societal recognition of the sanctity of life in at least 38 states and Commonwealths—including Virginia—codified through fetal homicide laws. In Virginia, the state code declares anyone “who unlawfully, willfully, deliberately, maliciously and with premeditation kills the fetus of another is guilty of a Class 2 felony.”

The Guttmacher Institute claims that nearly “one in four women in the United States … will have an abortion by age 45.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 3.61 million babies born in the U.S. in 2020. In 2018, there were 619,591 abortions —the equivalent of a large U.S. city is snuffed out each year. Unfortunately, abortion is not rare in America because of abortion extremists like Mr. McAuliffe. 

Some claim men shouldn’t have a say in abortion policy because they can’t get pregnant, yet the matter is vitally important since some men abandon women they have impregnated, and others pressure women toward abortion, making them feel coerced and optionless. Pro-abortion policies like Mr. McAuliffe’s give men a free pass from taking responsibility for their neglect. This disempowers women and is the opposite of feminist.

Mr. McAuliffe’s approach deceives women, making them believe abortion is their only or best choice if they’re unable to raise a child. But Mr. McAuliffe is wrong: many groups throughout our Commonwealth envelop a woman facing a pregnancy crisis with love, support, and free medical care, letting her know she has other options, including adoption. Hope in NOVA is one crisis center, providing “educational, material, and spiritual care to women vulnerable to abortion in the community.” 

Yes, conservatives can and should do more to support women’s and men’s access to birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Still, Mr. McAuliffe in the governor’s mansion once again would do nothing to prevent termination. Abortion is common and normalized because politicians like Mr. McAuliffe reject the mantra of “safe, legal and rare.”

• Carrie Sheffield, a writer in Arlington, Va., is the 2021 Tony Blankley Fellow for Public Policy and American Exceptionalism at The Steamboat Institute.