The Democratic Party signaled it plans to stake the 2024 election on its role as the champions of unrestricted abortion-on-demand, spending tens of millions of dollars on a new, negative ads slinging mud at pro-life Republicans.
The Biden-Harris campaign debuted a 60-second ad, titled “These Guys,” after the first Republican presidential debate, held at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum arena last Wednesday. The ad states “the last people who should be involved” in making pro-life decisions are “these guys” — omitting any reference to former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, whose campaign revolves heavily around the fact that she is a female.
It highlights the fact that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed a Heartbeat law, protecting unborn children from abortion after doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat, usually around six weeks gestation.
“I believe in a culture of life,” says DeSantis in the ad, a phrase coined by the late Pope John Paul II, which the nation’s second Catholic president seems to believe will trigger Democratic voters. “Our second Catholic president continues to make clear that he sacrifices Catholic teaching at the altar of abortion,” said Tommy Valentine, deputy political director at CatholicVote, in comments to The Washington Stand. “This is not some sort of good faith disagreement — he holds our Catholic values in contempt and there is no excuse for it.”
It also shows Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) vowing to “sign the most conservative pro-life legislation.” Controversially, it also references Trump’s 2016 comment to long-dismissed MSNBC host Chris Matthews that he believed in “some kind of punishment” for women who have abortion, a position Trump immediately abandoned and which pro-life leaders have consistently opposed for decades.
The new $25 million ad campaign will run on YouTube and Connected TV in seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The president is leaning heavily into abortion, because “Joe Biden has no record to run on,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice on Monday. On Biden’s watch, the nation has seen 40-year-high inflation rates, skyrocketing prices for gasoline and groceries, record-breaking numbers of illegal border crossings, and a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that left Americans stranded behind enemy lines.
The GOP platform’s pro-life position, adopted decades ago, contrasts with the Democratic Party, “a socialist party that agrees with abortion-on-demand,” insisted Norman, a member of the House Freedom Caucus. “That’s why it’s so important to stop this party from doing what they’re doing. And the only way you do that is you beat them, and you throw them out of office.”
Biden’s blithely pro-abortion theme is in keeping with the president’s first reelection ad, launched in April, which heavily promoted the Biden-Harris administration’s support for the abortion industry. In its opening seconds, the camera pans a sign proclaiming “Abortion is healthcare,” and Biden tells viewers he’s waging “a battle for the soul of America.” Without citing any presidential accomplishments, Biden charges Republicans with “dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books, and telling people who they can love.”
“This particular president has been a sad story for the United States,” Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” at the time.
An average of 54% of Americans disapprove of the job Biden is doing as president, while only 41% approve, according to an average of polls from FiveThirtyEight.com.
The new ad claims the Democratic ticket is “protecting your freedom” to make “reproductive health care decisions” for themselves. “As long as they are in office, decisions about your body will be made by you, not by them,” says the female narrator. But “killing a child is not health care,” Norman added. He felt proud that Republican presidential candidates “took a position of life. That’s what this country was founded on — not killing our unborn.”
“I was very pleased to see [Republican presidential hopefuls] talk about abortion” at last week’s debate, said Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel after the proceedings wrapped up. “If our candidates aren’t able to fend a response and put out a response, we’re not going to win.”
McDaniel has been a long and consistent advocate for her party’s candidates discussing abortion forthrightly, contrasting their party’s stance with that of Democrats, which polls show is favored by roughly 10% of voters. “We’ve seen what happens when we let Democrats define who we are and what we stand for,” she said in a speech at the Reagan Library in April. “When you don’t respond, the lies become the truth.”
A majority (60%) of Democrats agreed in a recent poll that abortions should not take place after 15 weeks, the terms of the “national abortion ban” the Biden-Harris ad promises to veto.
“In reality, Democrats hope to distract voters from their own extremism. Tellingly, Biden’s ad never states a single limit he would support — not even to protect babies from brutal late-term abortions after they can feel pain, a standard over 70% of Americans including many rank-and-file Democrats favor,” said Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement to The Washington Stand.
“Today’s Democrats even block protections for babies born alive in failed abortions,” Dannenfelser noted. “That is unacceptable. Everyone should be asking where the Democrats draw the line — is it 38, 39 weeks? Americans deserve to know where all candidates stand.”
President Biden has refused to debate his declared Democratic Party primary challengers, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson. Both Biden and Kennedy have debated themselves on abortion at times; Kennedy rapidly reversed public comments that he would limit abortions to the first trimester, while Biden has gradually drifted from supporting a constitutional amendment overturning Roe v. Wade to promoting taxpayer-funded abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy.
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
