Also among the signees were Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and state senator Katrina Jackson, deputy majority leader of the Rhode Island house Deborah Fellela, and Hawaii senator Mike Gabbard, father of congresswoman and former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard.
However, the party "ignored" its pro-life wing, DFLA executive director Kristen Day said on Monday. For the first time at a party convention, she said, the pro-life caucus is not being officially recognized by the DNC.
"We will not be ignored. We will not be silenced. And we will make sure that our vote matters in the election cycle," Day said.
She called for the party to appoint a new chairman, as current chair Tom Perez met with pro-life Democrats in 2017, yet according to Day, told them they were welcome in the party "as long as they kept their mouth shut and didn't vote that way."
DemList, a website that has published an events calendar for the party conference, refused to list the DFLA event. The site's publisher, Kimberly Scott, told Day in an email that the site would not carry the listing under "Pro-Life Caucus at the DNC" because the event "a pro-life event is inconsistent with the party platform, but most importantly, contrary to my views as a long time advocate of pro-choice, reproductive rights."
In the email, published by Daily Caller, Scott stressed that DemList was her own publication and she was "not comfortable" acknowledging the pro-life event.
During the event, Demotractic pro-lifers repeated their calls to the party to remove language opposing the Hyde Amendment and supporting Roe v. Wade from its platform, and called on Democratic organizations to stop any enforcement of a "litmus test" against pro-life candidates for office, such as that being pushed by the Democratic Attorneys General Association.
Day also called on the pro-Democrat fundraising site ActBlue to allow for pro-life candidates for office to be funded through the site.
Outgoing congressman Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), who narrowly lost his primary election to pro-abortion Marie Newman, said that in his eight terms in Congress, many in his district would tell him that they used to be members of the Democratic Party but have left because of the life issue.
Pro-life policies such as the Hyde Amendment and 20-week abortion bans are supported by a majority of Democrats, Lipinski said. "We are in the mainstream on those issues, and we cannot back down," he said. "I think it's a moral imperative that we protect life."
On Monday, speakers at the pro-life Democrats rally emphasized a "whole-life" message of caring for the unborn, migrants, and the poor, as well as fighting for racial and climate justice.
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Holloway emphasized that more effort needs to support clinics in low-income and minority neighborhoods that are providing "well-researched, accessible, evidence-based care."
She noted that while an abortion might cost a woman several hundred dollars with the facility located a half hour away, a fertility care visit for that same mother might be an hour-and-a-half bus ride away, with a cost of $12,000 to $15,000.
Members of the pro-life movement must care about neighbors, migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, and black lives, said Catherine Glenn Foster, president & CEO of Americans United for Life.
"How could we also not care about the lives in the womb?" she asked.
Matt Hadro was the political editor at Catholic News Agency through October 2021. He previously worked as CNA senior D.C. correspondent and as a press secretary for U.S. Congressman Chris Smith.