We won’t know until November whether going all-in for abortion will prove to be a winning strategy electorally for Democrats. But we don’t need to wait another two months to denounce the celebratory and mocking tone of the pro-abortion advocacy on display at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago.

It’s immoral and despicable. 

The convention’s launch on Aug. 19 coincided with the shocking spectacle of a Planned Parenthood abortion van deliberately parked directly adjacent to the DNC site, the United Center in Chicago, with the obvious complicity of Democratic officials. Planned Parenthood proudly announced beforehand that the van would provide free so-called “medication” abortions via distribution of the deadly drug mifepristone, as well as sterilizations via vasectomy and the distribution of contraception.

For both Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party, the abortion van’s death-dealing presence is a transparent effort to score political points. Senior Democrats believe their party’s unqualified support for abortion on demand is the political stance that will deliver them more votes than any other single issue during this presidential election cycle. And no one has been more vociferous in advancing this line than Vice President Kamala Harris, who was delegated as the party’s standard bearer for “abortion rights” long before she replaced Joe Biden at the last minute as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.

But it’s far more than a mere political stunt. Following the abortion lobby’s lead, the Democratic Party of today celebrates abortion, proclaiming it as a morally good action in its own right. Alongside of the abortion van’s presence, abortion is directly referenced no less than 13 times in the convention’s draft policy platform. And Kate Cox, the Texas woman who unsuccessfully sued her state for denying her an abortion, took the DNC stage on Tuesday to deliver a speech extolling how her subsequent out-of-state abortion had benefited her family.  

As pro-life leader Marjorie Dannenfelser pithily put it this week, Democrats have become “officially the Shout Your Abortion Party.” 

It’s a far cry from the party’s stated position in the mid-1990s, when then-President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton publicly advanced their “safe, legal and rare” mantra to justify their own full-throated support for legal abortion. “Safe” has minimal traction at a time when mifepristone-induced abortions now constitute about two-thirds of all U.S. abortions. That’s because such abortions are in effect artificially induced miscarriages, and miscarriage always poses a risk to the health of the mother. 

As for “rare,” when Planned Parenthood mobile vans drive around America’s cities and towns providing abortions — and offering their life-destroying services for free, when this serves the abortion lobby’s political interests — it’s painfully obvious this also no longer has a place in contemporary Democratic Party rhetoric. All that’s left of the Clintons’ mantra is “legal,” in virtually every conceivable circumstance without any moral qualms. That’s where their party stands today.

Another aspect of the abortion mobile’s DNC appearance was the intentional mockery of the moral concerns of pro-life Americans. A 20-foot-high inflatable IUD, dubbed “Freeda Womb,” was situated adjacent to the van, and a Chicago hot-dog vendor announced it was providing coupons for free hot dogs to all the women who obtained abortion drugs from the Planned Parenthood van. “So you pro-life dupes claim to believe in the sacredness of all human life and that every abortion claims the life of a precious unborn baby,” these vulgar stunts proclaim. “Allow us to show you exactly how much contempt we have for your moral beliefs.” 

The sad irony is that liberal animus toward religious faith has rendered “reproductive freedom” zealotry into something that looks and sounds an awful lot like a religious creed.

Pro-abortion activists routinely claim that unfettered access to abortion is necessary for women to fulfill their highest human aspirations and that “reproductive freedom” therefore must be situated atop the hierarchy of human rights, while abortion itself seems to be increasingly viewed as some kind of secular sacrament — an act that confers personal as well as political virtue on those who subscribe to the doctrine of “abortion rights.” 

This perverse politico-religious fervor renders Democrats oblivious to the bloody reality of abortion and to how offensive ploys like the abortion van are to the hundreds of millions of Americans who don’t subscribe to abortion-rights dogmas.

The Babylon Bee took aim at this ghoulishness in a satirical article titled, “DNC Dyes Chicago River Red to Celebrate Abortion.” Tragically, what actually happened in Chicago is even more morbid.