Obama: “I’ve got two daughters … [and] if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

Palin: “We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”

In 2000, the Democratic Party platform included a plank that read, “Our goal is to make abortion less necessary and more rare …” [PDF]

In 2004, the only reference to abortion in the party platform is this: “Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.” [PDF]

In 2008, the platform looks like this: [PDF]

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all
efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to comprehensive affordable family planning services and age-appropriate sex education which empower people to make informed
choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for
abortions.

The Democratic Party also strongly supports a woman’s decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs.

The word “rare” has disappeared from the platform. Instead, there’s a paragraph that links “affordable family planning services” and “age-appropriate sex education” with the ability to reduce the number of unwanted pregancies and the need for abortions.

So is the goal of the Democratic Party to actually reduce the number of abortions to achieve “rarity”? Or is it simply to contintue to fund so-called “family planning services”? I guess Planned Parenthood falls under that heading. That would be Planned Parenthood, who recorded record revenue of $1.018 billion in FY2006 [PDF]. Roughly a third of that revenue came from government contracts and grants. In that year, they performed 289,750 abortions, up from 264,963 the previous year. The number of “adoption referrals”? 2410.

According to the Democrats platform, more family planning means fewer unwanted pregnancies, which means fewer abortions, right? Ummm … the data doesn’t seem to support that. Planned Parenthood is well-funded, and by all accounts, performing all kinds of family planning services. But the number of abortions they are performing is actually increasing. Now, the overall number of abortions nationwide has been on the decline in recent years, but there is nothing to suggest that there is a connection between the funding of family planning or sex ed and this decline.

And what’s Barack Obama’s plan to reduce the number of abortions?