Louisiana Democrats are defying party orthodoxy by backing an effective ban on abortion in the state, a development that anti-abortion Democrats are hoping to leverage into greater influence within the party at the national level.
The Louisiana legislature passed a bill Wednesday, 79-23, to prohibit abortions after six weeks, and Gov. John Bel Edwards, an anti-abortion Democrat, has indicated he will sign it. The bill is similar to other “heartbeat bills,” which ban abortions after the point at which doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat, at about six weeks into a pregnancy and before many women know they’re pregnant, that have passed recently in Missouri, Georgia, and Mississippi. It does not included exceptions for rape or incest. The state Senate version was drafted by a Democrat, Sen. John Milkovich.
“I know there are many who feel just as strongly as I do on abortion and disagree with me — and I respect their opinions,” Edwards said after Wednesday’s final vote. “As I prepare to sign this bill, I call on the overwhelming bipartisan majority of legislators who voted on it to join me in continuing to build a better Louisiana.”
Planned Parenthood Federation of America issued a statement condemning the bill that did not mention Edwards by name. “The abortion ban passed in Louisiana is part of an alarming and widely-opposed national trend of bans criminalizing abortion before many women even know they’re pregnant,” the statement said.
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While most of the bill’s support came from Republicans, more Democratic senators, six, voted for it than the five who opposed it. Even in the deep-red neighboring state of Mississippi, in comparison, a minority of only two Democrats approved a similar “heartbeat bill,” versus 15 who voted against it.
The relatively strong Democratic support for the far-reaching anti-abortion measure is a sign of Louisiana’s unusual and conservative politics, as well as the strongly religious character of the state.
Milkovich, the bill’s author, is far from the only anti-abortion Democrat in the legislature. On the other side of the state House, Democratic Rep. Katrina Jackson has introduced a bill that would amend the Louisiana Constitution to say that nothing in the document says there is a right to an abortion.
Jackson, an unwavering abortion opponent, was a featured speaker at the 2019 March for Life demonstration in Washington, D.C. She has also drafted anti-abortion legislation in the past. In 2014, she authored a successful bill to require abortion clinics to have hospital admitting privileges, which, if it had not been deemed unconstitutional, would have closed down Louisiana’s three abortion clinics.
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Jackson’s latest bill only needs one final approval vote in the House to land on the governor’s desk. On May 21, the Senate passed it 31-4, with 8 Democrats approving.
Jackson told the Washington Examiner that she expects Edwards will sign her bill. “I fully support the governor,” Jackson said from the House floor Friday. “He’s never backed down, and people elected him for that.”
Jackson, Milkovich, and Edwards, by backing abortion restrictions to the right even of what recent Republican presidents have endorsed, are splitting decisively with the Democratic Party as a whole. Democrats on the national level have moved to the left on abortion rights in recent years. Most current Democratic presidential candidates favor a right to abortion into the third trimester of pregnancy.
For Louisianans, though, it’s no surprise that Democrats would side with the anti-abortion movement. U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, a Republican, said that although Democrats at the national level have shifted to the left, “social conservatism in a majority of the citizenry of Louisiana has remained constant.”
The movement toward banning most abortions in Louisiana, together with recent similar statewide anti-abortion measures, have emboldened anti-abortion Democrats, who have otherwise faced big setbacks in swaying the party in recent years.
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Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, said that the stances staked out by Democratic presidential candidates in favor of abortion rights were “extreme.” Day said that favoring abortion rights with few or no restrictions is politically disadvantageous, arguing that Democrats’ positioning on abortion hurt them in the 2016 race and had a hand in putting President Trump in office.
Day said her group will lobby for anti-abortion Democratic legislation in Congress ahead of the 2020 elections to make the case that opposing abortion and being a Democrat are not mutually exclusive.
Day has tried to push back against many liberal Democrats at the federal level who are trying to push anti-abortion Democrats out of the party.
For example, on May 17, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a liberal Democrat from Washington, said “pro-life” Democrats do not belong in the party. “You can’t say you’re a Democrat if you’re against immigrants, if you’re against abortion, if you’re against gay marriage and LGBTQ rights,” she said in a press conference.
Day rebuked Jayapal’s “abortion litmus test” in a May 21 letter, and encouraged the congresswoman to meet with her to discuss the issue further. Jayapal has not publicly responded.
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“We’re with the party on about 90% of the issues,” Day told the Washington Examiner. “They can’t kick us out of the party just for being pro-life.”
Day’s group is hoping the Democratic support for abortion restrictions in Louisiana will help demonstrate to the party as a whole that anti-abortion Democrats are more than just an anomaly and have to be accommodated.
“Pro-life Democrats are not silent,” Day said. “And we are standing firm.”
