Houston Democrats

Actually, Leif, I think you may be reading too little into Wallis' thoughts on this topic. A fuller reading of this paragraph may be in order:

Democrats need to think past catchphrases, like "a woman's right to choose," or the alternative, "safe, legal and rare." More than 1 million abortions are performed every year in this country. The Democrats should set forth proposals that aim to reduce that number by at least half. Such a campaign could emphasize adoption reform, health care, and child care; combating teenage pregnancy and sexual abuse; improving poor and working women's incomes; and supporting reasonable restrictions on abortion, like parental notification for minors (with necessary legal protections against parental abuse). Such a program could help create some much-needed common ground.

Nowhere in there does he suggest pro-choice Dems reverse course on their beliefs. Instead, he notes that with over a million abortions a year, there's ample room to look at ways to reduce that number without confronting the issue of a woman's right to choose. As I'm fond of saying, there's a 95% of the issue that can be addressed without either side having to budge from their belief, and then there's the 5% of the issue that certain rightwingers use to play the issue as a dividing point for voters, knowing that they affect nothing on the question of life itself.

As a pro-life Dem, I think there's plenty to deal with in that 95% before we have to worry about the 5%. But the lack of any desire by some within our ranks to even confront that 95% feeds the suspicion among some voters that there are too many Dems who are more eager to be pro-abortion than anything else.

What Wallis (another pro-life Dem) suggests, in effect, is to deal with the 95% of the issue. If we're dealing with ways to cut down that 95% side and the GOP is fretting about a handful of cases that represent less than 1% of all abortions, then I think we make a good case for demonstrating which side supports life and which side plays political games. I suspect that after we do that, the remnants of the current cultural conservative movement could well be divided into a sensible majority that is not beholden to the electoral machinations of either side and a whithering minority that clings to a Randall Terry-like view of life issues (and that remains as an embarrassing segment of the GOP). Politically, why not peel off that sensible majority and leave the other side with the fringe elements? Morally, why not add our willingness to substantially minimize the loss of life among the unborn in addition to the plethora of other pro-life issues (health care access high among them) that we already hold near and dear within our party ranks?

Democrats For Life have already been pushing their 95-10 initiative, which calls for common-sense ways to reduce the number of abortions by 95% in 10 years. This is a plan that is already getting some serious attention by Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean. What's refreshing about this plan is that it offers a realistic approach to cutting down the number of abortions without asking anything more of a pro-choice Democrat than whether or not you really want to see a world with fewer unborn children aborted. Similarly, Wallis does not suggest that pro-choice Dems change their minds on the issue, just that they demonstrate some concern for the life of the unborn ... and act accordingly.