The Democratic Party’s 2016 platform calls for allowing unlimited taxpayer funding for elective abortions for Medicaid recipients, a moved slammed as “crazy” by Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.
Demonstrating a dramatic shift to the left on the issue of abortion, the Democratic Party’s platform calls for the repeal of both the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for most types of abortion, and the Helms Amendment, which bans foreign aid from being used for abortions.
“We will continue to oppose — and seek to overturn — federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment … we support the repeal of harmful restrictions that obstruct women’s access to health care information and services, including the ‘global gag rule’ and the Helms Amendment that bars U.S. assistance to provide safe, legal abortion throughout the developing world,” the platform reads.
Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), one of the last pro-life Democrats in Congress, slammed the proposed platform language when speaking to The Weekly Standard.
“That’s crazy,” he said. “It’s something that I know most of the Democrats in West Virginia and most West Virginians would not agree with. I don’t either.”
The Hyde Amendment enjoys overwhelming public support.
When he appeared before a congressional committee in 2011, NRLC Federal Legislative Director Douglas Johnson said NRLC “believes that the Hyde Amendment has proven itself to be the greatest domestic abortion-reduction law ever enacted by Congress.”
The Democratic Party also signaled their strong support for Planned Parenthood.
“The platform goes further than previous Democratic platforms on women’s reproductive rights. It champions Planned Parenthood health centers and commits to push back on all Republican efforts to defund it,”the Democratic Convention Committee said in a press release.
Planned Parenthood is under investigation by a congressional panel after hidden camera videos showed officials with the abortion provider attempting to sell body parts from aborted babies on the open market and using procedures to alter the position of babies during an abortion to harvest the most intact organs.
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