Before the Dobbs decision, the senator had long considered himself a pro-life Democrat. That was then.
Before the Dobbs decision, the senator had long considered himself a pro-life Democrat. That was then.
W hen Catholic Democratic senator Bob Casey Jr. first ran for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2006, he defined his abortion stance in candid terms. “As many of you know, I am a pro-life Democrat. I believe that life begins at conception and ends when we draw our last breath. And I believe that the role of government is to protect, enrich, and value life for everyone, at every moment, from beginning to end.”
Quite a bit has changed since then. Nearly 18 years after he delivered that Pope John XXIII Lecture at Catholic University, his law-school alma mater, Casey no longer believes the terms “pro-life” and “pro-choice” are politically salient descriptors in the post-Dobbs era — for him or anyone else.
“I don’t believe that the terminologies we used before Dobbs make much sense anymore,” Casey told the now-defunct news outlet the Messenger last summer. That terminology, he said, might be “antiquated.”
As the chameleonic, formerly unabashed “pro-life” politician seeks his fourth term in the post-Dobbs era, he has evolved from an anti-Roe Democrat into one who voted in favor of the 2022 Women’s Health Protection Act, a sweeping, House-passed pro–abortion rights bill that, if enacted, would, among other things, supersede federal and state-level conscience laws and parental-notification statutes for minor girls who seek abortion services.
A closer look at Casey’s abortion record in recent weeks comes as Pennsylvania Democrats hammer his likely general-election challenger, Republican front-runner Dave McCormick, on the issue. They consistently point to a clip from a GOP Senate primary debate from May 2022 in which McCormick — a Gulf War veteran, former hedge-fund CEO, and ex–Treasury official in the George W. Bush administration — said he is against abortion except in “very rare instances” that concern “the life of the mother.”
Pennsylvania Democrats and a number of media outlets have used this sound bite as a stand-in for McCormick’s abortion position — which his campaign describes as uncharitable, given that the candidate has repeatedly made clear on the campaign trail, before and after that May 2022 debate, that he supports exceptions also in cases of rape and incest.
The McCormick campaign sent along a pre–2022 Election Day flyer from Life PAC of Southwestern Pennsylvania, which states the political-action committee’s support for exceptions in cases of rape and incest, that includes McCormick’s signature. The campaign also passed along an audio recording from a campaign event — which the candidate’s spokeswoman said took place before the GOP debate — in which McCormick expresses support for the three types of cases for which he thinks exception for abortion should be made.
As in 2022, Democrats are expected to lean in heavily on abortion this election cycle to paint Republican candidates as extremist and out of step with most Americans on the issue. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has spent recent weeks arguing that Republican Senate candidates’ expressed belief that life begins at conception means that they are enemies of in vitro fertilization. McCormick has forcefully defended IVF on the 2024 campaign trail amid an already expensive and competitive Senate race.
As the 2024 season heats up, far less media scrutiny is being paid to Casey’s evolving abortion record.
Potentially complicating Democrats’ abortion-related attacks on McCormick are Casey’s own public remarks on the issue like in 2006, when he maintained in his Catholic University lecture that “life begins at conception.” Even strategically clipped, decades-old sound bites could muddle Pennsylvania Democrats’ messaging strategy. Asked in a radio interview during his 2002 gubernatorial campaign whether his pro-life beliefs allowed for exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and threat to the life of the mother, Casey said:
My position has always been the — favoring the one exception for the life of the mother. I do think that if United States Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade and return that decision to the state legislatures, and if the general assembly of Pennsylvania were to pass an abortion bill, it would contain exceptions for rape and for incest and for the life of the mother. And I would sign that legislation. It would have the effect of reducing the number of abortions in the state.
Looming over Casey’s entire political career, of course, is the legacy of his late father and namesake, Robert P. Casey, a former governor of Pennsylvania and anti-abortion Democrat best known for spearheading the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act. The Supreme Court upheld those restrictions in its landmark 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe but enshrined the undue burden standard into federal law.
To be sure, Casey, who voted in 2011 to fund Planned Parenthood, was never a staunch anti-abortion advocate like his father. But he notably held onto the “pro-life” label through his 2018 reelection campaign and has consistently sided with Senate Republicans to advance a 20-week federal abortion ban — including in 2015, 2018 and 2020.
That was then.
Days after a draft Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs leaked to the press, in May 2022, Casey joined a near united Senate Democratic caucus in supporting the Women’s Health Protection Act. The bill went far beyond codifying Roe by prohibiting restrictions on abortion after viability — in other words, at any point during pregnancy — “when, in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.” (As erstwhile National Review writer John McCormack noted in these pages, the “bill’s chief Senate sponsor, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, has acknowledged that it ‘doesn’t distinguish’ between physical and psychological health.”)
The bill notably failed to win support from conservative Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia — let alone centrist GOP senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — and fell well short of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
But it marked a major shift in Casey’s abortion record — a shift his campaign attributes to the overturning of Roe.
“When the landscape around the issue of abortion fundamentally changed, Bob Casey made it clear where he stands: He thinks it was a mistake to overturn Roe v. Wade and voted for the Women’s Health Protection Act,” Casey spokeswoman Maddy McDaniel said in a statement to National Review. “David McCormick made it clear where he stands: He said overturning Roe was a victory and, with his back to the wall in a Republican primary debate, he made it clear he supports making abortion illegal without exceptions for rape or incest. Any attempt for him to now cover up his record by scrubbing his website or lying about his position just won’t work.”
During Casey’s 2018 reelection campaign, Democrats For Life of America still counted him among the organization’s few Democratic allies in Congress. That relationship has crumbled in recent years amid Casey’s leftward lurch on the issue, said Kristen Day, the group’s executive director.
DFLA worked alongside Casey to incorporate the Pregnancy Assistance Fund into the Affordable Care Act to provide resources and support services to pregnant women. Casey helped reauthorize funding for that program in 2019 alongside Murkowski, but has yet to take initiative on renewing the program before the funding’s next expiration at the end of fiscal year 2024.
“He’s just bought by the abortion lobby,” Day said in an interview with National Review. “I don’t know what kind of commitment he made to them, but it’s just unbelievable how far he’s fallen.”
Day also counts among Casey’s abortion-related legislative transgressions his support for the Women’s Health Protection Act in 2022, along with his decision to stay quiet last August when first-term Democratic governor Josh Shapiro announced that he would strip state funding for Casey’s father’s Real Alternatives program, which for three decades had provided women free crisis-pregnancy services.
“The current governor defunded it. And Senator Casey did not lift a finger to save it,” Day said. “That money goes to women to give them a choice to be parents instead of abortion. Governor Casey founded that program, and it’s consistent with Democratic principles to help those in need.”
Casey’s spokeswoman did not address questions from National Review about the Real Alternatives program or about whether Casey would again spearhead reauthorization of the Pregnancy Assistance Fund.
“It’s a shame he’d let his father’s Real Alternatives crisis pregnancy center go by the wayside when it provided so much help to women,” said Allegheny County GOP Chairman Sam DeMarco. “So much for standing up for life.”