Pro-Life Democrats: The Minnesota Test Case

By all rights and measures, Minnesota ought to be a perfect test case of whether it remains possible in this day and age to be a Democrat and also be pro-life in a meaningful and concrete way. After all, Minnesota (like Pennsylvania) is one of those few northern states in which a stalwart pro-life contingent has survived within the Democratic caucus (or what Minnesotans call the DFL or “Democratic-Farmer-Labor” Party). And, in Minnesota (as in so many other states), Democratic gains in last week’s election, including taking control of the state house of representatives (and increasing a majority in the state senate), came largely in more conservative/moderate suburban districts and often involved Democratic candidates who described themselves as pro-life. As one Democratic pollster described it, the new DFL faces in the legislature tend to be people who “ran away” from the official DFL platform.

So, if Minnesota is the harbinger of the future, how are things looking so far in terms of prospects for a pro-life revival within the Democratic Party?

Well, just one day after the election, the assistant leader of Democrats in the state senate, Senator Ann Rest, pronounced: “We have a pro-choice Senate now.” Then, in a clear dismissal of human life issues as being worthy of any attention in the legislature, Senator Rest asserted that “[n]ow we can concentrate on the issues that bring us together, not the ones that divide us.”

Then, just two days after the election, the DFL in both houses of the Minnesota legislature proceeded to disregard the new blood in the party from the suburbs and rural areas and elect as their new leaders two of the most liberal (and stridently pro-choice) politicians in the state, both from the DFL stronghold of Minneapolis. As Doug Grow of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, a left-of-center columnist, described the new leaders: “These two live blocks apart in Minneapolis. In much of Minnesota, including metro suburbs, they represent two of the scariest words in politics: ‘Urban liberals.’”

Anyone concerned about the sanctity of human life should be praying that these are not the signs of what is to come and that pro-life Democrats in Minnesota will respond with some vigor to these early dismissals. But, for now, it appears that a Pro-Life DFL-er remains the Rodney Dangerfield of Minnesota politics, that is, he or she “just can’t get no respect.”

And, in the meantime, it appears that the only thing that may hold back the new DFL-majority legislature from eroding even those limited protections for unborn life allowed to states by our judicial overseers is Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty.

To be (hopefully) continued (and perhaps my friends who count themselves among the pro-life Democrats here and elsewhere will have more propitious news) . . .

Greg Sisk