Democratic Party Draws A Line In The Sand On Abortion Rights [View all]

[BainsBane]

DNC chair Tom Perez said all Democratic candidates must support a woman’s right to choose.

WASHINGTON ― Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez became the first head of the party to demand ideological purity on abortion rights, promising Friday to support only Democratic candidates who back a woman’s right to choose.

“Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” Perez said in a statement. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”

“At a time when women’s rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country,” he added, “we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice.”

Perez’s statement follows the DNC’s controversial embrace of Heath Mello, a Democratic mayoral candidate in Omaha, Nebraska, whose years-long history of voting against abortion rights in the state Legislature drew fire from progressives this week. Daily Kos, a liberal website that raises money for lesser-known Democratic candidates, pulled its endorsement of Mello this week after discovering his history on the issue, and NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue slammed the DNC for adding him to its cross-country unity tour.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrats-tom-perez-abortion-rights_us_58fa5fade4b018a9ce5b351d?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004

Perez is speaking out against efforts to move the party sharply to the right, toward promoting whiteness and patriarchy over equal rights and economic justice. I applaud him for it.