OPINION:
It went largely unreported by most of the media, eclipsed by the “all-coronavirus-all-the-time” reportage, but the Democrats recently kicked someone out of their quickly shrinking “big tent.”
That’s apparently their idea of “social distancing.”
Rep. Dan Lipinski, Illinois Democrat, lost his bid for a ninth term in the March 17 Democratic primary for the suburban Chicago 3rd Congressional District to a far-left intraparty challenger, Marie Newman. It was a rematch of their 2018 contest, which Mr. Lipinski won in a squeaker.
It wasn’t so much that Mr. Lipinski isn’t a liberal. (He voted the Democratic Party line 87 percent of the time, according to Roll Call.) It was just that he was and is unapologetically pro-life in a party that increasingly has no tolerance for those who don’t worship at the altar of Planned Parenthood, enthusiastically embrace abortion rights and resist even the most modest restrictions on the procedure.
Ms. Newman had the backing of the pro-abortion EMILY’s List, NARAL and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, along with dozens of other far-left groups, which poured millions of dollars into the race. Mr. Lipinski was even shunned by many of his congressional colleagues, who supported his challenger.
(Just as an aside: Why is it that those scream the loudest for “tolerance” are themselves the least tolerant of views that don’t march in lockstep with their own?)
When the now lame-duck Mr. Lipinski leaves office in January, there will be just three remaining Democrats in the House (of the current 232) who count themselves as pro-life. And another of them, Rep. Henry Cuellar, narrowly survived a primary challenge from the far left in Texas’ 28th Congressional District himself two weeks earlier on March 3.
The two other House Democrats with ratings of more than 25 percent on the National Right to Life’s scorecard — Reps. Ben McAdams of Utah (42 percent) and Collin Peterson of Minnesota (55 percent) — had better watch their backs.
Pro-life Democrats are an increasingly endangered species, but don’t expect a federal agency to be called in to rescue them. The Democrats’ supposed “big tent” has been reduced to a pup tent.
Other Democrats claim to be “pro-life,” but won’t vote accordingly, risibly arguing that they don’t want to “impose their values” on others — even while doing just that on virtually every other issue.
Mr. Lipinski, 53, who was first elected in 2004 — succeeding his father, Bill Lipinski, who held the seat for 11 terms — declined to second-guess his pro-life position solely for the sake of winning re-election.
“I could never give up protecting the most vulnerable human beings in the world, simply to win an election,” the younger Lipinski said at a post-election news conference. “My faith teaches, and the Democratic Party preaches, that we should serve everyone, especially the most vulnerable.”
The pre-born are nothing if not the most vulnerable, but the party that claims to speak for the voiceless doesn’t want to hear that.
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