‘Prevention First Act’ is a political winner

March 31, 2005

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who opposes abortion rights, seemed to have crafted the perfect line for wavering Dems a couple of months ago — focus on prevention. He unveiled the Prevention First Act (S. 20), which aims to reduce the number of abortions by focusing on reducing unwanted pregnancies. NARAL, hardly Reid’s natural ally on choice-related issues, embraced the measure immediately and encouraged anti-abortion activists to join them in this effort.

So far, it hasn’t quite worked out. The Family Research Council, for example, called Reid’s bill “unacceptable.” Tony Perkins, FRC’s president, said he’d support reducing unwanted pregnancies, so long as it doesn’t include contraceptives, family-planning programs, or comprehensive education on sexual health. (He apparently studied at the George W. Bush School of Compromise.)

But, as Matthew Yglesias noted today, Dems shouldn’t read right-wing opposition as a sign of a poor policy. Reid’s approach is a political winner.

In case you were wondering whether the Prevention First Amendment gambit is a good political strategy, you really ought to take a look at the other Democracy Corps polling analysis (pdf), which sort of buries the lede on this one. It’s all about white Catholic public opinion and it reveals, inter alia, that if a candidate “Believes in a woman’s right to choose but believes all sides should come together around common goal of preventing and reducing # of abortions, with more sex ed, including abstinence, access to contraception and more adoption,” an overwhelming 74 percent of white Catholics will be more likely to vote for him.

The net 52-point advantage thereby gained is way, way, way bigger than the edge obtained by a Democrat who “is pro-life on abortion” (+24), “is Catholic and pro-life on abortion” (a smaller +20, oddly), or “is Catholic and pro-choice on abortion” (+3). The bad news is that the increasingly all-abortion, all-the-time outlook of America’s bishops does real damage. Episcopal condemnation for abortion rights votes is a net 16-point losing proposition. Still, the big message here is that the prevention first approach, though dismissed by pro-life activists as a kind of fraud, is a very potent political strategy and not something Democrats should drop after the initial flurry of activity.

That’s very encouraging data. The next move should be a re-emphasis on this bill on the Hill. Right now, including Reid, the Prevention First Act has 23 co-sponsors — but no Republicans. It’d be great to see the rest of the Dems sign on and then get to work on Specter, Snowe, Collins, and Chafee.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There’s one side of the political divide offering serious proposals to reduce abortions in this country — and it’s not the Republicans. Something for “values voters” to consider.

Yes! Yes! Yes! We need MORE good public policy that, as a bonus, exposes the right-wing as the inflexible, narrow-minded fools that they are, leaving them to defend their absurdly simple-minded answers to complex problems.

More, please.

  • I think that the Democrats could propose a bill that ended terrorism, solved our energy problems, balanced the budget, and so forth and the Republicans still wouldn’t support it. As zoe said above Repblicans are narrow minded.
    I like the idea of Reid trying to bring us to the table as Americans and negotiate on this non-issue that has become such an issue over the last few years. This is a good common sense approach that could end the endless debate on this issue and let us get back to more important matters. But I must be dreaming, maybe the real reason that Republicans won’t deal with the more important issues is that they don’t know how or they are financially motivated not to deal with them.

  • I have long wondered why–with so many people supporting reproductive rights–the democrats can’t find a way to turn the conservative intransigence on this issue into a cudgel and beat them silly. Maybe at last we’ve found our man in Reid. The Dems need to do what the Republicans have done so effectively: trap the opposition into a miserable choice between backing up their stated policies and thus alienating the vast majority of voters, or hewing to the party line and showing that they are a threat to a freedom that most Americans want very much.

  • I have supported this idea for a long time. With Reid and Clinton it is bound to get the attention it deserves.

    And in addition to being good policy, it will expose Bush and his anti-comprehensive-education push as foolishness.

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