The Democratic National Abortion Convention

I have been saying for months that the Democratic National Convention would be indistinguishable from a national abortion convention.

The abortion van providing free chemical abortion pills just outside the convention proved me right. But the van was no departure; it was true to style, both for the Democrat Party and for Planned Parenthood.

That’s why Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson was on the agenda on the third night, joining the chorus of those attempting to deceive the American public about how harmful Republican and Trump-led “abortion bans” have been.

Three women spoke from the convention stage on the opening night. I do not dismiss their tragic circumstances or deny that they deserve our compassionate help. In fact, I work to help such women every day all across the country.

But I do object to the way the Democrat Party tries to twist these narratives to draw totally unwarranted conclusions.

SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Amanda Zurawski spoke about nearly dying from pre-term labor, and the Texas ban on abortion.

The fact is, however, that after the Texas Supreme Court considered her case, the Court made it clear that the Texas ban on abortion permits abortion to save a mother’s life and health. In the words of the Court:

A physician who tells a patient, “Your life is threatened by a complication that has arisen during your pregnancy, and you may die, or there is a serious risk you will suffer substantial physical impairment unless an abortion is performed,” and in the same breath states “but the law won’t allow me to provide an abortion in these circumstances” is simply wrong in that legal assessment.

If there is a dispute here for Zurawski, it is with her doctor, who under Texas law only needs to exercise reasonable medical judgment that the mother needs the abortion. There is no need to go to court, to blame the law, or to make a political case out of a personal tragedy.

Then Kaitlyn Joshua spoke, ostensibly to expose the horrific evil of Louisiana’s abortion ban that allegedly threatened her life as she was miscarrying.

Again, the Louisiana law about abortion specifically allows abortion to treat miscarriage. The duty, again, is on the doctor to provide the diagnosis.

Finally, Hadley Duvall, who became famous in Kentucky for her political ads for Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear, spoke of how her stepfather raped her and although she had a miscarriage, she has become a spokeswoman for legal abortion.

Hadley’s story – and again, I do not deny its tragic circumstances — assumes that permitting an abortion to a rape victim helps the rape victim, completely ignoring the experiences of countless women that abortion itself is a trauma.

The last thing someone traumatized by rape needs is another trauma.

I serve as the pastoral director of the world’s largest organization for healing after abortion. My team and I help women who have been traumatized by abortion.

Hadley raises her voice, but so does Serena Dyksen, who was sexually assaulted at 13 years old, and testifies publicly that “the abortion was worse than the rape.” Sarahi testifies to the same thing, as does Aryn Sylvester.

And we can go on and on. 

For every story the Democrats want to highlight in their convention and in their ads, we can bring forth a hundred others talking about how harmful abortion is.

If you care about women’s health, you should be paying attention to what abortion does to women’s health, not simply preaching a dogma that abortion is, by definition, healthcare and freedom.

There’s another dimension to the Democrat dishonesty on display this week. 

By bringing to the stage women who experienced health complications and sexual assault, do they want us to believe that they are OK with just allowing abortion in those circumstances?

No, the Democrat Party opposes with all its might any law that would prohibit purely elective abortion. If they want to showcase their true policy goals, bring forward the abortionists who are paid to kill healthy babies of healthy mothers in the final months of pregnancy, or the woman I ministered to who had 26 abortions.

The Democrat Party criticizes the laws in Texas and Louisiana, but doesn’t once mention that those laws also allocate substantial funds to help moms who want to have their babies, including in cases of adverse fetal conditions.

The Democratic Convention is an abortion convention, because the Democrat Party is an abortion party – and a dishonest one. If they are so proud of abortion, why not show on those big convention screens how the procedure is done? Or how about just reading a description from the medical textbooks, in which you’ll find the words “dismember” and “decapitate?”

Or how about just being honest enough to admit that the reason abortion is a deeply contentious issue is that two lives are involved? Even the Supreme Court has admitted this over the years, which is why it did not put abortion in the category of a “fundamental right.” 

But for the Democrat Party, it’s just one-sided. It’s a woman’s reproductive freedom that matters. No need to consider the rights of the baby. 

It’s easy to win a debate by just eliminating one whole side of the argument. That’s not a debate at all; it’s self-serving propaganda, and in this case, propaganda that has flesh and blood victims.

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Frank Pavone is also president of the National Pro-life Religious Council and national pastoral Director, Rachel’s Vineyard and Silent No More.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.