The nation’s leading abortion industry political action committees have endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection in 2024 during the Biden administration’s weeklong abortion blitz, which includes “phoning abortionists” to “thank them” for their service.
On Friday, the three most powerful pillars of the nation’s abortion lobby — Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and EMILY’s List — preemptively endorsed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. “We were grateful to have leaders in the White House like President Biden and Vice President Harris, who have been vocal advocates for [abortion-on-demand] across the government and across the country,” said EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler. “This is the administration using every bully pulpit it can to advance [abortion-on-demand] across the country.” Biden and Harris are “the strongest advocates” for NARAL’s interests ever to occupy the Oval Office, agreed NARAL Pro-Choice America president Mini Timmaraju.
The White House celebration that included Joe and Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and her husband Douglas Emhoff continued an ongoing week of abortion-focused messaging that includes having Emhoff personally call abortionists to thank them for plying their trade.
“Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will call doctors to thank them for their work and hear about how state abortion bans are affecting their practices,” reported NBC News on June 19.
“We make first-century Rome look good,” said talk show host Janet Parshall. The focus on ginning up suburban female voters scared of losing the ability to abort unborn children represents “a desperate move by a desperate party to try and elect a desperately flawed candidate — all of this on the backs of pre-born children.”
On Thursday, the Biden-Harris administration’s Justice Department sent out a “fact sheet” detailing the administration’s executive actions to defend the abortion industry. The missive recounts aggressive action taken by the DOJ’s Reproductive Rights Task Force, led by Vanita Gupta, as well as unsuccessfully intervening in a court case to ban the abortion pill and funding women’s abortion-related travel out-of-state.
The Biden administration boasted of prosecuting pro-life advocates such as Mark Houck, whom agents arrested bearing military-grade weapons. “Since January 2021, the department has brought 18 cases involving a total of 48 defendants accused of criminal FACE Act-related violations,” bragged the fact sheet.
The extended abortion focus signals that Democratic campaign operatives plan to put the issue of abortion at the heart of President Biden’s 2024 reelection bid — a move they have telegraphed from the outset. The video Biden’s team posted on April 25 announcing his decision to seek a second term opens by showing a protester holding a sign that reads, “Abortion is healthcare” shortly before Biden declares he is waging “a battle for the soul of America.”
“Democrats want to get abortion back front-and-center because they believe that’s the means by which they win elections,” Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) told “Washington Watch” guest host, former Rep. Jody Hice on Friday. But polls show that may be a costly mistake.
“Only about 15% of Americans are where the Democratic Party is, and that is abortion up until the moment of birth,” financed by U.S. taxpayers at home and abroad, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told Newsmax Friday morning. Abortion affected Republican candidates negatively in the 2022 midterm election, “because they didn’t talk about it. Democrats spend $358 million talking about the issue, defining Republicans. Republicans spent $37 million.”
Pro-life leaders and GOP officials nationwide share Perkins’s belief that Republicans cannot hope to ignore abortion and run a campaign focused on economics, as many did last fall. “We are the pro-life, pro-woman, pro-family party, and we can win on abortion. But that means putting Democrats on the defense and forcing them to own their own extreme positions,” said RNC chair Ronna McDaniel in April.
Republican candidates “who are afraid of” defending life on the campaign trail “need to, candidly, grow a backbone,” insisted Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition.
Big Abortion’s support comes one week to the day after the nation’s largest labor unions officially endorsed Biden for president: the AFL-CIO, SEIU, IBEW, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and public-sector unions such as the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). That, in turn, came two days after Biden was endorsed by the nation’s leading environmentalist organizations: the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, and NextGen PAC.
The endorsement clusters come despite the fact that Biden has not officially wrapped up his party’s nomination. Biden’s main declared rival, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., polls between 15 and 20% and earns higher favorability ratings than Biden or former President Donald Trump. However, a CNN poll showed Biden’s favorability rating at an historically low 32%, and YouGov found 59% of voters do not want Biden to seek reelection.
The collective effort of multiple Democratic constituencies shows the Democrats plan to leave no portion of their base out of their reelection efforts — a move Republicans should emulate on the issue of life, said Walberg.
“We need to push back and gain the hearts and minds of people again.”
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
