There's a very interesting piece on Bart Stupak at rhrealitycheck. As it points out, Stupak has voted reliably with his caucus 96 percent of the time - the departures have been consistently on issues of women's sexual and reproductive health and rights:
He voted for the ban on late abortions in both the Clinton and Bush eras, despite the fact that these votes went against the advice of and evidence conferred by the medical community. He voted for the Global Gag Rule in its many iterations, a policy which research has shown actually results in an increased number of unintended pregnancies and abortions because it prohibits funding of effective family planning programs. He voted against legislation that would have allowed female members of the military to use their own funds for abortion when serving overseas. He voted for an amendment that would prohibit the the FDA from using funds for any abortion-inducing drugs.
He voted ‘yes’ on the 1993 Hyde Amendment, which prohibited federal funding for abortion except in the case of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. He's also voted in favor of the "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. All in all, Stupak has cast an anti-choice vote on over 40 separate occasions.
And that's just for starters. Check out the original article for the rest of the rundown on his votes and affiliations (in addition to The Family).
I know the Democratic Party is a big tent, a coalition, but how can this kind of a record be squared with the clear statement of support for women's reproductive rights as stated in the Democratic Party platform (p. 50)?
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.
The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to comprehensive affordable family planning services and age-appropriate sex education which empower people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.
The Democratic Party also strongly supports a woman's decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs.
That Stupak has been allowed to depart so strikingly from a major plank of his party's platform without so much as a peep against him from leadership over the past 18 years is a direct cause of the debacle he's caused in the battle for health care reform.
Democrats have been working systematically to neutralize the culture war issues the Republicans have exploited so successfully over the past several decades, mostly by losing or simply refusing to fight over them anymore.
I have to wonder whether party tolerance for Stupak's extremist anti-choice position over the years has been part of that strategy to peel away funders and interest groups from the Republican side by backroom compromising on the stated principles of the Democratic Party:
In 2004, Stupak was among the few anti-abortion Democrats who signed on to a letter decrying the actions of four bishops who threatened to deny Communion to pro-choice politicians.
In signing on to the letter, Stupak stated, "There are a number of us who are Catholic and who are pro-life, and I don’t think the bishops understand. They think that when there’s a pro-life issue they turn to the Republican party and the Republican party passes it. That is absolutely wrong. The Republican party on its own cannot pass one pro-life, one Catholic issue, without the support of us 30 to 35 pro-life Democrats who vote consistently with the Catholic church and with the pro-life movement on issues."
Stupak seems to be perfectly aware that that's the role he's been playing "behind the scenes" with Democratic leadership.
Such a strategy only works until it becomes patently obvious to the affected stakeholders that they're being sold out on the issues most important to them. Some issues can only be fudged or compromised to a certain point before the affected stakeholders' allegiance to the coalition becomes compromised itself:
If nothing else, the controversy generated by Stupak's agenda, and the loss of trust by pro-choice women in the Democratic party as a result of concessions to both Stupak and Senator Ben Nelson both should serve to illustrate to the Democratic leadership the implications for the party of supporting candidates who depart from the Democratic platform on sexual and reproductive health, if in fact it can be assumed these issues are more than nominally still part of the platform at this date.