Abortion Should Be Rare

Feministing has a post up today regarding abortion and the Democrats new platform (PDF warning) for the 2008 election. The whole of the article essentially focuses on how “safe, legal and rare” has become “safe and legal”. My main area of concern is as follows:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

I wonder why the Democratic leadership removed the word “rare” in their platform for this upcoming election. First is that Obama has been a pretty strong supporter of comprehensive sex-ed as well as supporting contracteptives. Second it seems that having the word rare in there adds to a wider range of appeal. I would argue there are very few supporters of abortion who want abortion to be a non-rare event. Instead the majority of pro-choice postions support compresenhive sex-ed and cheap and open access to contraceptives to reduce abortion. Why not, the fewer abortions the less of a controversial issue it becomes. Get smart people and increased contracaptives mean fewer abortions which works for both parties.

So I must ask the Democratic Party why the change in language, it seems you are both going against what makes good political and logical sense? Or is there a secondary reason that I am not seeing?


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