Of Course Abortion Should Be a Litmus Test for Democrats

[Azathoth]

68. "If we have no right to our own bodies, we are not full citizens."

I understand what you are saying here, but again, that doesn't always apply. Laws banning human cloning, laws banning drug use, possible future laws banning certain cybernetic and gene therapy procedures -- we have always lived in a society where there were some kind of limits on what we could do to our bodies. Add in the fact that a fetus is not necessarily PART of the woman's body, but rather a separate life process attached to it in a manner analogous to a conjoined twin, and things get even more murky.

I, personally, disagree with making such a contentious moral issue a "core principle" of the party. I think we have enough objectively moral common ground -- making healthcare affordable for everyone, ensuring that a working person can earn enough to support herself and her family, ensuring that no one suffers discrimination or disadvantage because of who they are, etc. -- to build core principles around. That doesn't mean I think we should field candidates who are fanatically anti-choice, because by the same logic, any absolutist position on the subject excludes vast parts of the country. But I don't think a moderate pro-life position should be an absolute barrier to running as a Democrat, especially on the state and local levels where we desperately need to make a comeback.