Is Pro-Choice a Necessary Democratic Position?

Yes. Can we overlook that? Only in the rarest of cases.

Today, Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), as Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the organization that works to elect Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives, announced, “There is not a litmus test for Democratic candidates.”

Immediately, there was a backlash among people who strongly support a woman’s right to choose:

I completely agree that pro-choice is an absolutely non-negotiable plank of the Democratic platform. Any attempt to weaken that should be stopped in its tracks. Women’s rights are human rights.

Personally, I’m sickened by “pro-life” politicians. The transparency with which anti-choice positions are used to control women’s bodies is disgusting. Choosing between a pro-life candidate and a pro-choice one, I’ll go with the latter every time.

But I don’t get to choose the candidates who win every House primary in the U.S. For that matter, neither does the DCCC. If an anti-choice candidate wins a Democratic primary, Democrats can — at most — withhold funding. In most cases, they probably should. Anti-choice Democrats have little to offer, should be marginal in the Party, and rarely have the opportunity to win elections, anyway.

But in the rare case that a pro-life Democrat is running a close race with a pro-life Republican — particularly if House control looks like it will be close — the DCCC shouldn’t have its hands tied.

An anti-choice Democrat might be the vote who decides House control, who puts the gavel firmly in the hands of the vociferously pro-choice Nancy Pelosi or another Democrat. I’d rather have Democrats in control of Congress, able to keep anti-choice legislation off the floor entirely, even if it means we have a few (mostly powerless) “pro-lifers” in our caucus.

If we’re not a big tent, we won’t ever get the chance to govern.