In a September 15, 1992 article appearing in the Village Voice entitled, "The Excommunication of Robert Casey," Nat Hentoff observed that the Democratic Party had abandoned free speech by not allowing Casey to speak at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. According to Casey, "The Democratic National Committee has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Abortion Rights Action League."

Casey said he would strongly support Lynn Yeakel who was then running against Republican Senator Arlen Specter. Yeakel favors abortion but, Casey said, "we agree on all the other issues." Despite being humiliated by members of his own party, Casey said he would not leave the Democratic Party. The anti-abortion Republicans, he insisted, "drop the children at birth and do nothing for them after that."

Unlike Republicans, pro-life liberals advocate real social support for pregnant women and mothers. In Pro-Life Feminism: Different Voices, editor Gail Grenier Sweet calls for:

Easy access to contraception, sufficient maternity and paternity leaves, job protection, job-sharing and flex-time, aid to women who wish to stay home to raise young children, tax breaks and subsidies for women caring for elderly relatives at home, community based shelters for pregnant single women to learn parenting skills and finish their education, upgraded pension plans to alleviate the poverty faced by many elderly women, humane care of the handicapped and elderly in nursing homes, hospices for the terminally ill, medical care for infants born with handicaps, shelters for battered women, childcare programs, etc.

Similarly, in the December 1993 issue of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" periodical on the religious left, in an article entitled "How Will we Revere Life?", editor Rose Evans writes:

"This editor has long been aware of the relative success of the Dutch support system for pregnant women, compared to that of the U.S. The Dutch abortion rate is a minute fraction of the American. I believe the rate for young women in their teens is about one-twentieth of the U.S. rate. And this is done not so much by restrictive laws (although there are some restrictions) as by real social support for pregnant women and mothers.

"The situation for pregnant women in the U.S. who don't have assured income, family support and medical insurance is abysmal and getting worse. Choice is a joke. Women don't have money for decent food, decent housing, or decent medical care, nor adequate support after the child is born."

"Want to Stop Abortions?" asks the June 1995 newsletter for the Colorado Peace Mission in Boulder, CO. "Make them unnecessary. Provide everyone with: A choice of whether to have sex...and with whom; Comprehensive sex education; Non-coercive family planning; Safe, affordable birth control; Open, honest talk about sex; Loving parents..."

Until we pro-life Democrats have enough numbers within our party to change the Democratic Party platform to one advocating a Constitutional Amendment extending human rights to the unborn (as is the case with the Republican Party), I think we should be advocating the following: real social support for pregnant women and mothers, along with reasonable restrictions, such as a 24 hour waiting period, parental consent/notification, informed consent laws, a ban on partial-birth abortions, etc.

Doing this would dramatically bring down the abortion rate, which would please pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike within our Party, and it would be consistent with Bill Clinton's "safe, legal and rare" position. If "safe, legal and rare" becomes the new mantra of the Democratic Party with regards to abortion, I would consider it real progress from the '70s, when pro-choice bumper stickers read: "Abortion is every woman's choice."