Opinion | Democrats Shouldn’t Be So Certain About Abortion

The use of abortion to cast Democrats as immoral is not new, of course. And it is in part because of Republican extremism on this issue — evidenced by the recent abortion ban passed in Alabama, for instance — that Democratic politicians, strategists and commentators are arguing, as if it is a natural conclusion, that Democrats ought to respond with a similarly defiant, absolutist approach on the issue. This is not a logical response, though, but an ideological one. I would argue that Republican extremism on abortion should lead Democrats to move to the broad center in this debate or at least to entertain the center’s concerns.

The data is clear: A majority of the American people are in the middle on questions of abortion policy. According to a June NPR/PBS/Marist poll, 18 percent of Americans believe abortion should be “available to a woman any time she wants one during her entire pregnancy,” while 9 percent want abortion illegal in all cases or illegal in all cases with an exception for saving the life of the mother (another 9 percent). The majority of Americans want to see abortion restricted to either the first three months of pregnancy (23 percent) or allowed only in the cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother (29 percent).

The disparity between our political parties’ approaches to the issue of abortion and that of the American people is not just a matter of policy, but also, crucially, a matter of tone, rhetoric and feeling. Here it’s not so much that Americans are somewhere in between right and left, but rather that they are on a whole different plane.

A 2018 Public Religion Research Institute survey found that 62 percent of Americans believe abortion is a complicated issue rather than a simple one. An earlier P.R.R.I. survey showed that a majority of both black and Hispanic Americans believe abortion is “morally wrong.”

This kind of nuance is nowhere to be found among most national Democrats, including our 2020 candidates (with the exception, perhaps, of Joe Biden). Democrats used to express great offense if Republicans described them as the party of “abortion on demand.” Now, Democratic candidates seem happy to leave the impression that their party is just that, often justifying their position by suggesting it’s a direct result of listening to women, communities of color and those with low incomes.

Here’s the problem: They don’t speak for these communities when they appear to support abortion on demand. We know that 73 percent of women believe abortion should be restricted to at least the first three months (with a large percentage of those women supporting even greater restrictions). According to a June Morning Consult/Politico poll, 42 percent of Hispanics support Hyde (28 percent oppose), as well as 36 percent of African-Americans (37 percent oppose) and 46 percent of Americans with an income under $50,000 (31 percent oppose).

The candidates use similar rhetoric to argue against restrictions and requirements like mandatory ultrasounds, requiring doctors who perform abortions to have hospital admitting privileges and mandatory waiting periods, all of which have majority or near-majority support among women, communities of color and the poor.