You will probably be able to count on one hand the number of times the liberal media will wring their hands this campaign season about the national Democratic Party being beholden to the abortion lobby. To her credit, Melinda Henneberger of the Washington Post will be one of those reporters.
In her page August 8 "She the People" feature on page A2, "Democrats' Big Tent is a cold place for antiabortion advocates," the Post columnist lamented that while a Gallup poll shows a significant plurality of Democrats -- 44 percent -- "said abortion should only be legal 'in a few circumstances,'" that chances are incredibly slim that the party will alter its platform plank on abortion to soften its absolutist stand.
"The effort is probably doomed; NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan is on the [platform] committee, and those pushing for the change were happy just to get to testify; they weren't even allowed to do that four years ago," Henneberger noted, adding later that
...the abortion rights lobby writes big checks and wields such unlimited power that I've long thought abortion rights have become to the Democrats what the Second Amendment is to Republicans -- who are so terrified of the "slippery slope" that even the most common-sense gun restrictions are out of the question.
Henneberger's pro-gun control beliefs aside, it is a fascinating contrast, particularly given how every four years in the convention season the media insist on pushing Republicans to become more liberal on social issues like abortion but fail to question the Democrats' unwavering dedication to abortion-on-demand.
If the media want to insist that the GOP are captive to special-interest, single-issue lobbies like the right-to-life movement and gun-rights groups like the NRA, fairness and balance dictates that journalists would similarly worry that the Democratic Party is too beholden to special-interest groups on the opposite end of the spectrum.
