Did Buttigieg tell a pro-life Democrat that the party has no room for her?

Fact check: Yes, but as nicely as possible. In a Fox News town hall last night, Pete Buttigieg fielded a question from Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, about the Democrats’ hostility to pro-life voters. This does not come out of left field (pardon the pun), as Day herself explains in her question and follow-up. The party’s platform language makes it clear that abortion should be legal to the moment of birth and with federal funding, leaving very little room for anyone who might even favor any restrictions.

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Mayor Pete does a very good job of dodging the platform question at first, focusing instead on a “let’s respectfully agree to disagree” approach. Unfortunately for Buttigieg, Chris Wallace doesn’t let him off the hook:

Wallace then asked Day if she was satisfied with the answer Buttigieg gave. She said she was not.

“He didn’t answer the second part of my question, and the second part was: The Democratic platform contains language that basically says, ‘we don’t belong, we have no part in the party because it says abortion should be legal up to nine months, the government should pay for it,'” Day said. “In 1996 and several years after that there was language in the Democratic platform that said ‘we understand that people have very differing views on this issue but we are a big tent party that includes everybody and therefore we welcome you — people like me — into the party so we can work on issues that we agree on.'”

Buttigieg countered: “I support the position of my party — that this kind of medical care needs to be available to everyone, and I support the Roe v. Wade framework that holds that early in pregnancy there are very few restrictions and late in pregnancy there are very few exceptions.”

“And so I may have my views, but I cannot imagine that a decision that a woman confronts is going to ever be better, medically or morally, because it’s being dictated by any government official,” he said.

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Note that Buttigieg’s first answer was nearly identical to that 1996 platform language. Buttigieg went out of his way to respectfully acknowledge the sincerity of Day’s position and the significance of their disagreement before almost literally reciting the “work on issues that we agree on” conclusion. Had Buttigieg just suggested that the DNC consider introducing that language back into the platform, Day might have been satisfied with the answer.

Instead, Buttigieg essentially contradicted himself in double-talk and left the distinct impression that he also doesn’t think there’s any room in the party for pro-life voters. Why, when polling shows the vast majority of Americans — and a plurality of Democratsfavor restrictions of some kind on abortion? Day herself has an answer to that question:

“We’ve had enough,” said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, said to CNA after Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg told her at an Iowa townhall event on Sunday that he would forego the support of pro-life voters to maintain his absolute support for legal abortion.

Pro-abortion presidential candidates “are so afraid of the abortion lobby, and even making any inroads to Democrats for Life, pro-life Democrats, they’re afraid that they’re going to lose all their money and support,” Day said.

Pro-life Democrats throughout the country are frustrated over the party leadership’s increasingly staunch support of abortion, she told CNA.

“We need pro-life Democrats all over the country to go to these [presidential] candidates and ask the question, do you want pro-life Democrats in the party? Because if not, we won’t vote for you,” Day said.

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Well, Day did that rather effectively last night, and got a fairly clear if not outright explicit answer. The Democratic Party has no interest in a diversity of viewpoints on abortion and want to represent only the 25% of Americans who support abortion on demand up to the moment of birth. Vote accordingly.

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