Doerflinger: It Was "Tragic" and "Unwise" to Target Pro-Life Democrats

Richard Doerflinger, the longtime director of pro-life activities for the U.S. Catholic bishops, is retiring and has given an interview to the National Catholic Register. In it he reflects on, among other things, lessons learned from the Affordable Care Act's political fallout. As many will remember, pro-life Democrats who had worked for the Stupak Amendment to the ACA (putting the most explicit restrictions on abortion funding), but who ultimately agreed to vote for the non-Stupak version of the law with an executive order on abortion funding, were targeted by pro-life fund-raising groups in the 2010 midterms. All but a few of those Democrats were defeated. Here's Doerflinger:

     In the end, something happened that I thought was very tragic. The Democrats who pushed forward with the Stupak amendment, but then had their arms twisted to support the bill, were targeted in the next election.

 

     It was a bad vote. But pro-lifers’ decision to target these legislators was unwise. They were pro-life members of the House, a force for our values within the Democrat Party, and you lost them as allies.

Kristen Day of Democrats for Life (on whose board I sit) reacts with points explaining why Doerflinger's recognition is correct, if sadly belated. The destruction of pro-life Democrats, she notes, eliminated the legislators who were the bishops' "natural allies" on the range of issues addressed by Catholic social thought, including "immigration reform, paid maternity leave," and "the social support that is critical to providing fuller support for women and families to choose not to abort their children." Their elimination made the pro-life movement entirely dependent on Republicans, which is turning out to be a very dicey bet as that party flirts, at least at the national level, with self-destruction at worst and (because of demographics) marginalization at best.

Was it worth it? The position apparently was that a vote against the ACA was not only pro-life--despite the various anti-abortion provisions and social supports in the law (which I among others detailed*)--but was so obviously the only possible position for a pro-life legislator to take that those who struck the balance the other way had to be chased out of office. Kristen Day explains why (as DFLA predicted in 2010) that assessment of the ACA and abortion funding has turned out to be far from the case: 

    Conservative pro-lifers were committed to the notion that lines of women would form outside federally funded clinics, eager to wait for their “free” abortions funded by our hard-earned tax dollars.  A Lozier Institute report cautioned that the ACA would swell abortion rates by more than 111,500 federally funded abortions per year.

 

     Fortunately, the Lozier report was flat-out wrong.  A 2016 Associated Press study indicated that the number of abortions has decreased at an average rate of 12 percent in almost every state.

 

     The debate on the ACA brought awareness to the number of health insurance plans covering abortion and increased demand for, and awareness of, plans that do not cover abortion.  A majority of health insurance companies and organizations, including the Republican National Committee, covered abortion at that time.  Prior to the ACA, five states restricted abortion coverage in insurance.

 

     Today, twenty-six states prohibit abortion coverage.  Twenty-one states allow coverage for abortion only in limited circumstances.  Next year, [because of the ACA's own requirements,] every state must provide at least one plan that does not include abortion coverage.  And more families have access to health care.  Only two (both in Alaska) of the 155 multi-state plans cover abortion.

Was targeting the pro-life Democrats for defeat worth it?

 

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* The linked analysis of mine was originally posted in 2010; it has just been reposted on the Democrats for Life website because the original link had broken.--TB