While there may be some argument on the “yeas and nays” of these questions, the disastrous 240-194 vote on Stupak signaled profound dysfunction in pro-choice vision, leadership, strategies and tactics. Folks, this wasn’t just a wake-up call, it was a defining moment.

The pro-choice leadership seems to believe that it has an identity of interests with the Democratic Party. This is a mistake. While interests intersect, when it is politically expedient Democrats will throw the abortion issue under the bus. The events of the past few weeks constitute a case study.

The job of pro-choice leadership and the organizations they run is to advocate for an issue.

Their role is not to run “interference” for Democrats on the Hill, forever shielding them from tough votes and excusing their legislative retreats and fallbacks on key positions. Their job is to advance reproductive rights and justice by holding Democrats accountable to their pro-choice principles, helping to elect pro-choice candidates to congress and defeat anti-choice candidates for congress.

It is also the job of pro-choice leadership to authentically engage grassroots supporters. Yet at times our leadership has held up grassroots organizing and protest for fear of alienating Democratic leadership. At other times, the leadership offers assurances that it supports goals like the repeal of the Hyde amendment but it won’t invest any of its political capital in trying to make progress achieving that goal. There is a serious disconnect between the Washington pro-choice policy agenda and the vision of the pro-choice movement, and until that gap is addressed our political power will continue to be diminished. 
 

I believe pro-choice leaders may have made a fatal mistake in not challenging the Democrats’ 2004 decision to recruit and run anti-choice candidates. They believed Democratic leadership when they were told that the pro-choice agenda would not be undermined by these newly elected anti-choice Democrats because Democratic leaders in the House and Senate would “have their backs” on policy issues.

Well, so much for political assurances. Pro-choice leaders must now recognize that they have fallen victim to a classic “bait and switch” with Democrats telling pro-choice advocates they couldn’t save them from Stupak because they just didn’t have the votes. Gee, wonder why? Couldn’t have anything to do with all those anti-choice Democrats elected since 2004 could it?

And on the paper tiger front, I wonder why the Stupak amendment—the only amendment that gored a major democratic constituency—was allowed on the floor? The “blue dogs” had the votes for so-called tort reform, capping medical malpractice awards, but we didn’t see that amendment. Did we? Maybe it’s because the trial lawyers would have yanked every cent from Democratic candidates and leadership committees the next day. Nope, don’t want to give the shaft to the trial lawyers; they might actually do something about it!

And what about the public option? The blue dogs had the votes to mess with the compromise on the public option, but did we see that amendment on the floor? Hell no. Labor would have announced its support for primary challenges on the spot. Oh, and they would follow through, too.

It appears labor and the trial lawyers haven’t forgotten the advocate’s dictum as expressed by Frederick Douglass: “Power yields nothing without a demand. Never has. Never will."

I guess the current pro-choice equivalent would be: “Don’t worry. We’ll cover for you”.

Honestly, in retrospect is it really any wonder that family planning was the first thing to be thrown overboard during the stimulus debate? Or that the Democratic leadership of the House Foreign Affairs Committee jettisoned the reproductive health integration components of the $15 billion PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) initiative because they were too “controversial”?

Given this track record, Stupak looks less and less like an aberration and more like an inevitable consequence of a power outage in the pro-choice movement.

After the rallies, emails and phone calls to overturn Stupak, let the reassessment begin.

Meanwhile, tell Democrats we won't let stand for health care reform that takes women back to an era of coat hangers and back alley abortions. Visit The Hanger Project to learn more and sign the petition.