25 DNC Speakers Defend Legal Abortion

Led by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic National Convention saw 25 speakers reference the party's support for legal abortion, an average of eight speakers per night in what several media outlets called the most "abortion-centric" Democratic convention since at least 1992, Baptist Press reports. In 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry didn't even reference abortion in his acceptance speech, and Obama in 2008 mentioned "abortion" only in the context that both parties should work together to reduce "the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country," but 2012 was much different. Speakers, however, preferred phrases or words such as "reproductive rights" and "choice." Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, may have been the only speaker to explicitly mention the word "abortion" when she said, "I am proud to say that the Democratic Party believes that women have the right to choose a safe, legal abortion with dignity and privacy." Some suggested Democrats were promoting legal abortion in an attempt to go after the female vote, but a Gallup poll this year showed that among all women voters -- Democrats, Republicans and independents -- 46 percent call themselves "pro-life" and 44 percent "pro-choice." A 2011 Gallup survey found that 32 percent of Democrats call themselves "pro-life."