It Seems Abortion Is The Liberal Glue That Binds

Has abortion become the glue that holds liberals together? What is it about this horrific act that never ceases to energize the progressive left?

Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, who’s now the Democratic candidate for governor, became a darling of the left with her filibuster on a bill that sought to ban abortion twenty weeks into a pregnancy.

Now, we have the Democratic candidate for Nevada Lieutenant Governor Lucy Flores being described as “the left’s new hero,” according to left-wing site Salon. What did she do to garner such praise from liberals and feminists? Well, she had an abortion because she decided she was too young to be a mother (Via MSNBC):

“I had six other sisters … all of them became pregnant in their teens – all of them,” Flores said. “One of them was 14 years old when she got pregnant with twins.”

Then, with a nervous laugh, Flores told her colleagues something she had never admitted to anyone.

“Since I’m sharing so much this session, I might as well keep going,” she said. “I always said that I was the only one who didn’t have kids in their teenage years. That’s because at 16, I got an abortion.”

Her eyes welled up and her voice caught as she described how she had convinced her father to pay the $200 cost for the procedure. She didn’t want to end up like her sisters, Flores told him.

“I don’t regret it,” she said. “I don’t regret it because I am here making a difference, at least in my mind, for many other young ladies and letting them know that there are options and they can do things to not be in the situation I was in, but to prevent.”

When any woman shares her abortion story, she creates space for others to do the same. That in and of itself is a tremendously powerful and generous act. And when women like Flores — or California Rep. Jackie Speier, who disclosed her own abortion experience in 2011 — share stories publicly and in the very places that policies governing reproductive healthcare are crafted and voted on, they change the political landscape. They humanize the issue, and position themselves as experts on the policies that have personally impacted their lives — and the lives of millions of other women. There’s real power in that.

Abortion should be humanized? This is coming from the same site that posted a piece called "so what if abortion ends life," which was a haphazard defense of abortion and putting life on a graduated scale.

And, it’s not just people who are pro-life that are troubled by this trend. Some members of the media, namely ABC News’ Cokie Roberts, were troubled by how “over the top” the 2012 Democratic National Convention was on the issue of abortion.

I think this Democratic convention was really over the top in terms of abortion…every single speaker talked about abortion — and, you know, at some point, you start to alienate people. Thirty percent of Democrats are pro-life.

As for laws banning abortion twenty weeks into a pregnancy, almost everyone supports that, including 60% of women.

It’s doubtful that Ms. Flores admission to an abortion during her high school days will have a detrimental impact. It was in high school, and even conservatives know that digging up dirt from those days is a bit of an overreach. They’ve also been the targets of such hijinks. Does anyone remember the Washington Post’s story alleging that Mitt Romney cut some hair off a gay kid in high school?

Shouldn’t it be disturbing that one of the benchmarks in becoming a hero to the American left is having an abortion, or promoting policies that emphatically support it?

I’ll just leave it to Katie Pavlich, who explains how liberals manipulate this issue in her new book.