#neoliberal hypocrisy

I would have appreciated it if NARAL had taken the time to talk to some of us on the ground” regarding Mello, said Megan Hunt, an Omaha reproductive-rights activist. Tom Perez’s public spanking of Mello may have won him a tweet of approval from  Ilyse Hogue, but in Omaha, the DNC’s response was greeted with dismay. “It was Heath’s credibility with pro-life legislators that enabled him to take mandatory ultrasounds off the table and substitute a bill that stated that women had a choice to have one and (whether or not) to see the image,” said Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, of the ultrasound legislation. The competing (Republican) bill not only required ultrasounds before an abortion; it also required clinics to position the screen so that women would be forced to view the fetus. All of the women I spoke with here were well acquainted with Mello’s personal opposition to abortion. But they also knew that while remaining true to his beliefs and his Catholic faith, he has been a public defender of Planned Parenthood, one who has shifted his efforts from blocking abortion to helping women avoid unwanted pregnancies by supporting comprehensive sex education and access to contraception—the same path travelled by politicians from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden to Tim Kaine. As governor of Virginia, Kaine not only backed laws mandating parental consent and banning late-term abortions; he also signed a law that actually did require women seeking abortions to undergo medically unnecessary ultrasounds. He also signed a bill to create “Choose Life” license plates in the state.

Last year Ilyse Hogue — along with most liberal Democrats — had a far more more forgiving attitude toward Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who, like Mello, is personally pro-life. “I am okay with people having a different moral system than I do as long as they don’t legislate that on me or anyone else,” said Hogue in a statement last July, adding, “7 in 10 Americans support legal access to abortion and some of them are like Senator Kaine, who feel personally opposed but still believe that it’s not for a politician to determine for anyone else… I believe Clinton chose Tim Kaine because she trusts the guy, and I trust her.” Of course, Kaine wasn’t just personally pro-life; like Mello, he also had a history of supporting anti-abortion measures as governor of Virginia. As ThinkProgress reported in July (around the same time as Hogue’s statement), while in office in Richmond Kaine had “pushed for adoption over abortion, promoted abstinence-only education, passed a law that required parental notification for minors wanting an abortion, and banned late-term abortion.” ThinkProgress noted, “He even signed a bill to use state dollars to create ‘Choose Life’ license plates, which funded state ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ — facilities whose sole purpose is to dissuade pregnant women from getting an abortion.” So this entire Heath Mello incident appears to be a thinly veiled sectarian attack against Sanders, driven by bitterness and resentment. For the most outraged Democrats, the problem hasn’t so much been that the Democratic National Committee is supporting a candidate who is moderately pro-life — after all, their 2016 vice presidential candidate was moderately pro-life — but that Bernie Sanders (who still won’t call himself a Democrat, much to their chagrin) has supported a candidate who is moderately pro-life. Needless to say, capitulating on LGBT rights or women’s reproductive rights is not an option for progressives — and never has been. If a candidate like Mello were indeed planning to “strip women of basic rights and freedoms,” then Sanders would be well-advised to retract his endorsement and vehemently reject Mello’s candidacy. But that’s simply not the case.