Dean Says Democrats Losing On Abortion ("I Don't Know Anybody In America Who's Pro-Abortion.")

Pioneer Press ^ | April 21, 2005 | Bill Salisbury

[MisterRepublican]

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean thinks his party has been wrong on abortion.

In his first visit to Minnesota since becoming the party chairman two months ago, Dean told an audience in Minneapolis on Wednesday night that while his party is right to defend a woman's right to have an abortion, it is wrong to defend the procedure as a moral issue.

"I think we need to talk differently about abortion," the blunt-spoken physician and former Vermont governor told several hundred supporters of the Minnesota affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Dean was the 2004 presidential candidate whose campaign soared to an early lead only to quickly burn out. His campaign transformed politics by using the Internet in new ways to raise money and organize grass-roots supporters. But his support collapsed when party activists decided he was either too liberal or abrasive.

Since the November elections, several Democratic Party leaders, including New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Dean, have spoken of an effort to alter the party's thinking on certain abortion issues. The large crowd at Wednesday's Minneapolis gathering gave him repeated standing ovations. The speech centered on privacy issues such as the Patriot Act, but it was the topic of abortion that stood out.

The debate shouldn't be about whether abortion is good or bad, Dean said. It should be about whether a woman has a right to make up her own mind.

"We got pushed into a corner by the Republican propaganda machine, forced to debate and defend positions that aren't our positions," he said. "I don't know anybody in America who's pro-abortion."

[Numbers Guy]

"I don't know anybody in America who's pro-abortion"

Why wouldn't people be pro-abortion? It's just a routine medical procedure involving a useless hunk of flesh. Why wouldn't politically correct-thinking people proudly state "I'm pro-abortion!" [/sarcasm]

[dirtboy]

The debate shouldn't be about whether abortion is good or bad, Dean said. It should be about whether a woman has a right to make up her own mind.

And kill her fetus in the process. Dean, you can try to stake out a middle ground on this topic - but, at the end of the day, you cannot have half of an abortion. You either believes it kills a human being, or you engage in dehumanization of the fetus so that a woman exercising her "right" to abortion is not also carrying out a death sentence against a human life, but just having a blob of cells removed from her body.

[rod1]

Typical DEMI. Howie think they need to "talk differently".

Hey Howie how about acting and voting differently for a change. As they say--talk is cheap.

[mlbford2]

Then he needs to meet my sister. sigh

[sonofagun]

The debate shouldn't be about whether abortion is good or bad, Dean said. It should be about whether a woman has a right to make up her own mind.

Sounds like the same "Safe, Legal but Rare" rhetoric they've been using for the last twenty years.

[ken5050]

So therefore, it's "Right to defend something that is morally wrong?"..Yep, that about sums up the Dem's worldview..

[RexBeach]

Oh really, Governor Dean? Then how, please, have more than 40-million abortions occurred in America over the past thirty years? Or was that just a politically correct fad?

What a jerk.

[MisterRepublican]

Indeed. I guess he thinks if Democrats begin to claim (using deceptive semantics) that they are not pro-abortion, everybody is just supposed to ignore the past 30 years of Democrat rhetoric that makes it loud and clear that they ARE PRO-ABORTION.

[Protagoras]

The debate shouldn't be about whether abortionMURDER is good or bad, Dean said. It should be about whether a woman has a right to make up her own mind.

[Spok]

Has he forgotten which party he represents? Without its whacko base, the Democrats have nothing.

[layman]

"I think we need to talk differently about abortion"

Emphasis on the word 'talk'.

[don-o]

But his support collapsed when party activists decided he was either too liberal or abrasive as nutty as a fruitcake.

[rabidralph]

The Star Trib version says that about 1,000 people showed up and the event raised $40,000. Not exactly a "large" crowd.

[MisterRepublican]

I guess this speech to the extremely left wing ACLU, where he drew "howls of laughter by mimicking a drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh" and said "Democrats have to learn how to speak from the heart and with respect to Americans who have found more comfort in Republican appeals to their fears about their jobs, health care, schools and national security." is all part of his campaign to appeal to "Red" state voters.

And don't forget, "We need to talk about Christian values and how they're Democratic values," Dean said.

[Lurking in Kansas]

Typical DEMI. Howie think they need to "talk differently".

talk differently = obfuscate

[hosepipe]

[ "We got pushed into a corner by the Republican propaganda machine, forced to debate and defend positions that aren't our positions," he said. "I don't know anybody in America who's pro-abortion." ]

Says, a vertiable "abortion doctor"... after performing many "HITS" himself..
The "Fetus HITMAN" of the democrat party.. and now capo de capo of the abortion MOB..

Kinda gets me all teared up...

[acelatek]

"If I could strike the words 'choice' and 'abortion' out of the lexicon of our party, I would,"

and do what, replace them with words like 'freedom' and 'convenience'?

I don't care how you wrap it, they still support it.

[greydog]

The debate shouldn't be about whether abortionMURDER is good or bad, Dean said. It should be about whether a woman has a right to make up her own mind.

It should be about whether a woman/John Wayne Gacy/Jeffery Dahmer/Sam Berkowitz/etc. has a right to make up her-his own mind.