Politico asks Was abortion a wave-stopper for Democrats in 2010?
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By branding Republican challengers as outside the cultural mainstream on the issue, Democrats managed to hold on to at least a slice of the political center by courting and winning over moderate women in a handful of key states.
The strategy ran counter to the one that enabled the party to broaden the political map in 2006 and 2008, when Democrats thrived by running candidates whose positions on abortion were closely attuned to the socially conservative areas where they sought office.
This year, however, Democrats adopted almost the opposite approach late in the 2010 campaign. As many of the anti-abortion Democrats elected over the last four years were going down in defeat, the party made abortion a central concern in a handful of battleground Senate races — and they ended up in the Democratic column as a result.
One reader wrote to me to make this point too.
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In New York, EVERY statewide contest was won by Dems because they used abortion rights to drive the women’s vote. Gillibrand started it in her Senate contest against DioGuardi, then Schneiderman used it in the AG race against Donovan. Paladino’s website stated he would end Medicaid funding for abortion, which even got me annoyed.
Although the country is evenly divided on the question of abortion, it is a bottom line issue with many voters.
I have talked to a number of Jewish woman who tell me they get incensed over the idea that women might be denied the choice.
While it is true that Palin said she wouldn’t legislate against abortion but she would advocate against it. She made a point of endorsing candidates who were pro-life and as President she could make a point of appointing Justices who are likewise, prolife.
While I am at it, I talked to a brilliant Jewish woman this weekend who said that Obama won on “smoke and mirrors” but that she remains a committed Democrat. Jews are hot wired to stand up for social justice which means providing a good safety net. They are also hot wired to resist dictates of the Christian religion. No way do they want to be ruled by their stand on Abortion. Jews by their nature are progressive. For centuries Jews were oppressed by the status quo so sought progressive policies.
When Jews must choose between their attachment to progressive values including abortion rights and their attachment to Israel, many of them would sooner abandon Israel or convice themselves that Obama or Democrats are not anti-Israel that abandon progressiveness.
It is wrong to label such Jews as stupid. They simply didn’t want to vote against their progressive values. Dershowitz is a case in point.
It is not only Jews who are protective of their choice but the whole feminist movement is.
Palin only hurts her chances by being anti-abortion. I can easily see the Democrats making abortion a central issue in the next election.
Palin should declare herself early that she would not make abortion illegal but she would make it rare. This would help her enormously.
Another big divide is on the question of the safety net. Democrats campaign on being their brother’s keeper. Conservatives campaign on freedom and never complicate their platform by discussing the safety net. They can’t avoid this issue forever. Bush campaigned as a “compassionate Conservative.”.
Its time for Palin to write another facebook entry on her views on the appropriate safety net. She should dispell any notion that she is for a dog eat dog world.
I would encourage any who realize the importance of God’s Laws and morality to marriage, sex ,family, and civilization to read:
Family and Civilization by Carle C. Zimmerman – The unabridged work is no longer in print unfortunately but I was able to find a copy through a used book search service. It is an academic work (sociology) but quite readable, very interesting, and extremely important for our day. An abridged version is in print and available at the major online bookstores but abridging a book almost always reduces the quality of the work and to varying degrees recasts the book in the image of the editor. Take the time and expend the effort if you can to get the original if possible – it is worth the effort and price to obtain and worth the effort and time to read. Read the abridged version if you cannot obtain the original due to price, availability, or lack of time to obtain it – better the abridged version than not reading it at all.
Shy Guy. Easier said that done. You guys who think you have all the answers. She wanted me to find a doctor that would perform an abortion. She REFUSED to take any necessary steps herself and DEFINITELY would not have done what you suggested. So I contacted a Doctor who did not perform abortions herself but could make arrangements. I did not like being put in this position bv I knew her well and didnt want to find her dead either. Much to my and the Doctors relief she was too along to get an abortion although legally it could have been done the Doctor advised her against it. She calmed down and got past her suicidal state.
Mer, in Israel, the solution for such a suicidal girl is Efrat. There are other similar organizations here.
I’m sure the same concept is well established in N. America.
In Canada a 14 yr old girl can get an abortion without parental consent. If that same girl wanted to get a tattoo or piercing she would require parental consent if she was under the age of 18.
I had a situation where I walked in on a 16 yr old teenager attepting suicide. She was pregnant. She had no father in her life and her boyfriend had already abandoned her. She didnt want to shame her mother. She said her only other alternative to suicide was abortion. All she really needed was someone to help her through that wouldnt judge or scold her. She asked me to tell her mother for her. It was hard. Her mother could see the anguish in her daughters eyes and embraced her. She gave the baby up for adoption.
Birdalone, Can you explain how snuffing a newborn life complete with human DNA is not killing a living being, even though you pro-abortionists and the legal system don’t call it murder?
I watched the show – it was nothing more than a charming travelogue and a glimpse of some awesome Alaskan landscapes. It would be rather shallow and idiotic for anyone to judge Palin for the presidency based on a travelogue about her native Alaska. Barack Obama had written two bogus autobiograpies as a Senator, one of which described his parents as meeting four years after he was born, which would be quite a trick. He had long-term, close working relationships with some of the most anti-Semitic and anti-Americans in America. Yet 78% of American Jews and 53% of the American electorate voted for him.
I wasn’t attacking the messenger and in many ways I agree with you. Abortion should not be made a political issue.
ask any Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, animist, Confucianist – that is more than three billion people who have a different belief system about the nature of “life”
If only they were the only people on earth, we would not have to see American presidential elections decided by this issue, which is the only point I was trying to make. You want Obama re-elected? Make “abortion=murder” an issue.
attack the messenger is all most of you know.
Please explain why abortion is not murder, Mr. Science.
as far as I am concerned, everyone who believes abortion is murder should move to Gaza where you will be very happy living with absolutist fundamentalists who share your intolerance and distorted reading of history.
as for Sarah Palin? no need to think she can now run for president after episode 1 of Alaska’s Sarah Palin (certainly not Sarah Palin’s Alaska). The reviews from her former fans are withering. The state of Alaska may eventually recover from her abuse of the landscape
This is nothing but an excuse for making up things in the constitution out of whole cloth and pointing to the the “penumbras” and “emanations” of other constitutional protections.
Doesn’t the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness protect the life of the unborn child regardless of any such bogus “penumbras” and “emanantions” from other protections?
Birdalone, will you give it a rest? How the hell are you comparing the privacy of a private conversation with the privacy to kill your unborn child?
Yeah, and put the entire country and half the world in a crapper. I hope they’re happy that they can go on killing 1.5 million babies just in the US alone.
It is not the women who are being torn limb from limb and flushed.
Of course the fathers must be held responsible for paying for the support of the child. The pressure is no excuse. There are several organizations now who will help a woman through her pregnancy and even help with a possible adoption. Would you accept the same excuse for flushing Grandma because she has become a hassle?
only men would write such distorted lies about women.
cancelling my interest in anything social conservatives believe in. the intolerance is beyond comprehension
no need to respond – I just cancelled my subscription to this thread.
Planned Parenthood is involved in the murders of millions of innocent unborn children. Nothing can wipe away this fact.
Proverbs 6:16-19 There are six things which the LORD hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 A heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, 19 A false witness {who} utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers. (NAS)
Sanger was a monster!
Eugenics and euthanasia
Sanger was a proponent of negative eugenics, a social philosophy which claims that human hereditary traits can be improved through social intervention. Sanger’s eugenic policies ran to an exclusionary immigration policy, free access to birth control methods and full family-planning autonomy for the able-minded, and compulsory segregation or sterilization for the profoundly retarded. She expressly denounced euthanasia as a eugenics tool.
In A Plan for Peace (1932), for example, Sanger proposed a congressional department to:
Keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feebleminded, idiots, morons, insane, syphilitic, epileptic, criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred by the immigration laws of 1924.[21]
And, following:
Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.[21]
Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent “dysgenic” children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and dismissed “positive eugenics” (which promoted greater fertility for the “fitter” upper classes) as impractical. Though many leaders in the negative eugenics movement were calling for active euthanasia of the “unfit,” Sanger spoke out against such methods. She believed that women with the power and knowledge of birth control were in the best position to produce “fit” children. She rejected any type of eugenics that would take control out of the hands of those actually giving birth.
Taking sharp issue in plain words with certain other[22] eugenicists, however, Margaret Sanger completely rejected the idea of gassing the unfit. ‘Nor do we believe,’ wrote Sanger in Pivot of Civilization, ‘that the community could or should send to the lethal chamber the defective progeny resulting from irresponsible and unintelligent breeding.'[23][24]
Sanger’s views thus broke from those proposing Nazi eugenics—an aggressive, and lethal, program. She wrote in a 1933 letter:
“All the news from Germany is sad & horrible, and to me more dangerous than any other war going on any where because it has so many good people who applaud the atrocities & claim its right. The sudden antagonism in Germany against the Jews & the vitriolic hatred of them is spreading underground here & is far more dangerous than the aggressive policy of the Japanese in Manchuria..”[25]
Sanger believed the responsibility for birth control should remain in the hands of able-minded individual parents rather than the state, and that self-determining motherhood was the only unshakable foundation for racial betterment; she wrote:
“The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics…. We are convinced that racial regeneration, like individual regeneration, must come ‘from within.’ That is, it must be autonomous, self-directive, and not imposed from without.”[26]
We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother… Only upon a free, self-determining motherhood can rest any unshakable structure of racial betterment.[27]
She advocated coercion to prevent the “undeniably feeble-minded” from procreating;
“The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind.”[28]
Read More
Margaret Sanger’s epiphany and lifelong mission came from the death of an Orthodox Jewish woman, Sadie Sachs, from her second self-induced abortion when Sanger was a nurse for the NY Henry Street Settlement in 1912. One version of this tragic story: “
The reason Margaret Sanger went the judicial route was because of the repeated failure to get each state to change the Comstock Laws that classified contraception as pornography. Sanger tried for more than twenty years to get New York law changed. The term “Banned in Boston” comes from Sanger being banned from making a public speech in Boston.
The right to privacy NOT explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution? Justice Louis Brandeis started THAT concept in a case from the 1928 on electronic eavesdropping of telephone conversations of bootleggers during Prohibition. “Olmstead v. United States (1928) – Right of privacy In his widely cited dissenting opinion in Olmstead v. United States (1928), Brandeis relied on thoughts he developed in his Harvard Law Review article in 1890. …”
You really have no idea how many women, and men, will come out to vote against Sarah Palin over this. Most people knew Bush43 was not rigidly hardline on this issue because his parents and his wife Laura were not. But, you better believe Obama got a lot of votes because of the pending Supreme Court nominations that everyone knew were coming.
Palin lives her belief, and she can not suddenly pose as solely a fiscal conservative. Also, many people really do not want another soap opera family (a la Clintons) in the White House.
So, I guess one can blame Roe v Wade on two Jews: Sadie Sachs and Louis Brandeis 🙂
sorry for not including links. spam filter.
Thnx Shy Guy.
No, Mer. Read what I linked to. There is a common set of commandments between the 10 Commandments and the Noahide laws. However, they are not the same todo lists. And the Noahide laws were already in existence since the time of Adam+Noah, way before Israel received the Torah’s revelation (not just the 10 Commandments) at Mt. Sinai.
That does not exclude Noahides from appreciating the Sabbath. But that’s not an obligation.
The Torah doesn’t mention a fictitious christian sabbath, nor a Muslim one, for that matter, nor one someone might decide to invent for every Wednesday. There is only one Sabbath and its concept excludes idolatrous beliefs, such as christianity.
Shy Guy. Really? Perhaps there is no obligation for a gentile to honour the Jewish sabbath but arent they suppose to honor their own sabbath? This is confusing. So a gentile then could also wiggle out of all other 9 commandments? Its like a loophole.
Mer, this is not true. There is no obligation for a gentile to observe the Sabbath.
Otherwise, how would we have Shabbos goys???? 🙂
Non-Jews are obligated to observe the 7 Noahide Laws.
Yamit. Not all Christians are New Testament only Christians or replacement of Judaism Christians. Many do also take the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament as a vital part of their faith. The ten commandments was not meant just for Jewish people only. Rather the Jewish Rabbis are stewards over the ten commandments which is for everybody. Jew and Gentile alike.
A.E. Men need to take equal responsibility for abortion. These women/girls do not get pregnant all by themselves. Often these women/girls are pressured by their parents boyfriend or husband to abort.
I agree with you but this notion comes from the liberal American Jews who consider themselves secular humanists. Both the Jewish women who are Justices on the Supreme Court are pro-abortion.
Not true. George W. Bush is pro-life. An American president has nothing to do with abortion any more. From a governing level it is a legal issue based on a Supreme Court decision called Roe V. Wade passed by ultra liberal justices who made up out of whole cloth a principle of “privacy” that is not in the US Constitution. If a future Supreme Court ruling overturns Roe V. Wade the issue simply reverts to the states where it should have always been to begin with. Even the woman who started the lawsuit that ended as Roe V. Wade has since become pro-life because of all the human carnage it has caused – worse than any genocide over the years.
Science has already done that when they found the complete human DNA from the moment of conception.
This is not a public health issue because the health of the unborn is never considered – 1.5 million a year just in the US. It is a moral issue of whether we can kill those of us who are inconvenient. These women who abort always have the option of giving up an unwanted child for adoption to the many women who would love to have a child but cannot conceive.
Palin is only “polarizing” to liberals and those who can’t think straight and so have to distort her views. She is wildly popular to average Americans because they see themselves in her. If you don’t want her nominating Federal judges you are no different from a liberal Democrat.
Not as much as it hurts the 1.5 million babies flushed just in the US every year. It didn’t hurt George Bush who is also pro-life so why should it hurt Palin.
Social justice is a code word for socialism, defined by ruling elites, which then allows them to do whatever they want in its name. What we need is INDIVIDUAL JUSTICE.
I believe this comes from liberal American Jews who salve their consciences by convincing themselves that the foetus is an unviable tissue mass. DNA tests now show this to be a false premise.
Palin has no way to “make it rare”. She has already said that she would not force her personal beliefs on others. Northerner is wrong. George Bush was also pro-life so why is this only Palin’s problem? Abortion is a legal issue in the US and the president has no direct impact on it any more. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe V. Wade because it was passed on a bogus premise of privacy that is nowhere to be found in the US Constitution, it will simply revert to the individual states where it should have always been.
This is what we conservatives need to show the idiotic “regressives” who call themselves “progressives” to try and fool as many people as they can. Marxism is the most idiotic philosophy every devised. It is based on the premise that a small group of ruling elites know what is good for everyone else better then they do. How stupid is that? The results show how stupid.
The results produced by Marxism/socialism/liberalism are human debris strewn all across the nations that tried it. Russia and China and India, arguably with very high IQs per capita were unable to make it work, even though the first two tried to ram it down everyone’s throats with force and intimidation while India tried the softer democratic Fabian socialism. All three then abandoned socialism and their economies are lifting more people out of poverty than ever before. The only socialist states left are oppressive economic basket cases like N. Korea, Cuba, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and several more failed states in Africa.
BTW, on the subject of the unborn, bookmark this site: Just The Facts
Like laws against theft, fraud, murder, rape, child abuse, wife beating, etc.??? Governments are established to protect law-abiding citizens by suppressing criminal immorality to the lowest levels possible by punishing those who commit acts of criminal immorality. Non-criminal immorality is controlled by families – primarily Fathers and Mothers dutifully teaching their children to fear God and to obey his laws. Putting before them the same choice Moshe put before Israel a choice between life and death – blessing and curse. CHOOSE LIFE!
You want to inflict pain , I want to inflict death with pain.
debate all you want. the point is that the Democrats very succesfully used “protecting reproductive rights” to drive up their pro-choice voter turnout. The government has NO business imposing on women ANY religious definition of when life begins. Some women will ALWAYS make the difficult decision to abort, which is why this is a public health issue. government should stop trying to legislate morality.
Before you get too carried away on Palin, new polls show her unfavorability ratings dwarf those of any other potential GOP nominee.
If Palin really loves America, she will not run for president. I think she knows how polarizing she is, and does not want ‘social issues’ to once again divide America, and keep us from solving our fiscal crises. Even I do not want her nominating Federal judges.
Truly bizarre to see the Democrats have to resort to this issue in order to win – they had nothing else to generate enthusiasm from their base.
Lastly, If two men were fighting and injured your pregnant wife and she lost the child as a result but no harm came to your wife, could either you or your wife say that no harm was done as you mourned for the lost child?
If men are fighting and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, (to the woman and/or the child – ?why do you ignore the possibility of harm to the child?)he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if any harm follows,(to the woman and/or the child – again why do you ignore the possibility of harm to the child?) then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
New American Standard Genesis 9:6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man. (Isn’t an unborn child a human being created in the image of God?
Yamit thanks for the detailed explanation of prevailing Jewish understanding.
Regards,
Ken M.
I know you beat me to the same references 🙂 Happens!
Yamit: wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
As a Jew I oppose Abortion for life style reasons.
The traditional Jewish view does not fit conveniently into the major “camps” in the current debate.
Abortion in Jewish Law.
by Daniel Eisenberg, M.D
Jewish Law deals with the most tender and valuable members of Hebrew society: pregnant Jewish women. Exodus 21:22, “If [the] men would fight, and hit a pregnant woman, and the fetuses come out, and there will be no harm [to the woman], then he will be fined, fined as the woman’s husband imposes on him, and gives as they lay [on him].” Contrary to anti-abortionists’ views, Hebrew law does not treat a fetus as a human being: killing a fetus is punishable with a fine only, it is not a criminal offense such as killing a human being.
The fine is not specified here, and whether it is large or small is a matter of conjecture. On one hand, the law carefully specifies double and quadruple fines, and therefore leaving this fine unspecified hints that it is insubstantial. On other hand, the law uses strong language: “fined, fined” and “lay on him.” My feeling is that the fine is small, and thus not subject to specification; the strong language refers to the sureness of the fine rather than its amount.
And here the Hebrew criminal law culminates. Exodus 21:23-25: “And if there would be harm [to the woman], then give a soul for a soul, an eye for an eye…” Tit-for-tat retaliation is prescribed only for harming pregnant women.
The legal status of women in Hebrew society vastly exceeded that of men. Maiming a man was punishable by fine only, but similar harm to woman involved harsh retaliation. The legislator recognized that women are inherently more vulnerable than men and need stronger protection.
The Christian view on abortion is similar to the Christian rewriting what you call the Golden rule. Our Ethics are practical yours unworkable idealistic. Don’t do unto others that which you don’t want done to you. or Do no harm to your neighbor. When we say love we define neighbor as other like-minded Jews not like the Christians, everyone.
There is a time to love and a time to hate!
1. Ken, how do you know that the prohibition against murder includes the unborn?
2. Northerner, neither knowing nor sanctifying prove that killing the unborn is considered murder.
I’m playing devil’s advocate, as I’m a Torah observant Jew, against abortion whenever prohibited.
I’m largely with ken.matthews on this. The anti-abortion position can be taken from the Tanach from scriptures such as
Jer 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you;
Abortion is murder: Thou shalt not murder.
Christian doctrinal errors regarding the Laws of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob doesn’t change the fact that a law of God, Thou shalt not murder – Outlaws abortion. You are a JEW – then shouldn’t you choose LIFE over death and encourage others, Jews and gentiles, to do the same. Children are a blessing from God – the CREATOR – the GOD of Israel – the only true GOD.
Now what commandment might that be and whose god are you referring to?
I didn’t know that thou shall not abort was a commandment?
If you are referring to Jewish commandments by the Jewish G-d, then I see much hypocrisy here in that many of our commandments are either ignored or not accepted by Christians so why then just pick on only one to make a principled statement?
“Fancy meeting you here!” 🙂
(Now I have to look up the din of a goya mamzeret that wants to convert!)
I am a survivor of abortion. My antisemetic mother who screwed a Jewish man to get even with the antisemetic man who raised me. My mother never intended to get pregnant as at the time she was estranged from her husband. She told me that she wished abortion had been around at the time because she would have aborted me but she said its nothing personal. Ya. A real good Catholic lady she was.
Your concern should be to get fully committed God-fearing men and/or women elected. If Mrs. Palin were to support abortion she would have turned her back on a primary commandment of God. Compromising on matters of morality to get elected accomplishes nothing but only puts morally weak persons into high office who quickly lose in competition with evil men who are completely dedicated to their evil goals.
“We the people” cannot over turn the law of God: Thou shalt not murder.
America is not a theocratic state, but it is supposed to be “one nation under God.”
The fact that so many Americans have forgotten these facts is the primary cause of the
rapid decline of the USA – Pro. 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin [is] a reproach to any people.
Thanks Ted.
My only concern is to get her elected. So with all things considered she is better off being anti abortion, so be it. But that is the issue I raise.
In Canada we passed obscenity laws but then the courts had to decide what constitutes obscenity. They decided that it varies from community to community and thus each community must decide for itself., Similarly, if the courts were to overthrow Roe v Wade and everything reverted to the states to determine for themselves. tthat would work for me also.
Mathews should realize that liberal Jews have rejected Rabbinic Judaism just as they reject any dictates from Christianity.
Palin wants to keep government off our backs and wants the people to have choice and more fredom. But in this case she wants less choice and less freedom. You might argue that the provisions of criminal law restrict freedom and choice and I would agree. So is committing abortion one of those things that should be criminalized. People differ on when life begins, thus, Roe v Wade is a compromise.
The issue here is that it is up to “we the people” to decide and not the Christian interpretation of the bible or the Jewish for that matter. America is not a theocratic state.
Those who oppose abortion will automatically draw highly negative responses from some quarters even if the subject of abortion never comes up.
I don’t think we are far from when an opponent of abortion will never be electable as president.
How many different names have you used so far bedrock?
Laura:
Laura, Not to worry. It matters little. All your posts are the same. We know exactly what you wrote.
Sarah Palin should stick to her principles. Those with principles are respected. Should she soften over the abortion issue she will appear like just another unprincipled, wishy-washy opportunistic politician.
Because they were DEMOCRATS. Their anti-abortion stance caused them to lose the democratic base yet they weren’t conservative on other issues enough to gain GOP voters. A Republican who’s anti-abortion isn’t going to have that problem.
This isn’t just a Christian issue. Judaism is pro-life. Where do these people get the notion that killing babies is a Jewish value? How sick. If you’ll notice the more observant a Jew is, the more conservative their politics, the more conservative on social issues they are. As to Jews being “hot wired” to be progressive, they cannot be truly religiously Jewish if that’s the case. And most American Jews are secular.
Screw them. They are worse than stupid, they are self-defeating traitors. If liberal values are more of a priority for them, then they were never truly committed to Judaism in the first place. And they never really cared about Israel in the first place.
A president cannot make abortion illegal so its a moot point. Anyway abortion was never illegal on a national level. Before Roe v Wade it was simply up to individual states to make abortion laws. In many states abortion was legal. Even if she appointed judges who would overturn roe v wade, it would only mean that it would simply go back to being a matter for the states to make abortion laws.
As to the safety net, social programs have been disasterous and have created generations of dependency. Jews above all, having succeeded in a free market economy should not be pushing socialism.
Jews are hot wired to stand up for social justice – Is killing your unborn child justice? Beware of advocates of “social” justice I find that more often than not they are opposed to simple Torah justice.
They (Jews – liberal Jews)are also hot wired to resist dictates of the Christian religion. – I do believe the commandment: Thou shalt not murder – is JEWISH. I do believe that Moshe and the God of Israel has said: I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, [that] I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: THEREFORE CHOOSE LIFE, that both thou and THY SEED may live…” Choosing life is JEWISH. The vast, vast majority of abortions are not performed for reasons based on life-threatening complications of pregnancy, rape, incest or other so-called “hard cases”. So the (in my opinion questionable) rabbinical acceptance of abortions in these circumstances does not apply in probably better than 99% of cases of abortions in western countries.
When Jews must choose between their attachment to progressive values including abortion rights and their attachment to Israel, many of them would sooner abandon Israel (?the redemption and God?) or convince themselves that Obama or Democrats are not anti-Israel than abandon progressiveness. It is wrong to label such Jews as stupid. – I agree the correct label would have to be immoral – for loving the “progressive” values of man more than the law and justice of the God of Israel.