The Atlantic

Democrats Avoided the Toughest Debate Questions on Abortion

In part one of the Democratic Party’s first primary debates, the candidates did not go deep on substance.
Source: Joe Raedle, Jim Watson / Getty

The 2020 Democratic presidential candidates see abortion as a winning issue in the next election. That was clear from the first night of the party’s primary debates, where the politicians onstage vied to show how emphatically they support abortion rights. The candidates focused on fear: of the state-level abortion bans recently passed in places such as Alabama, Missouri, and Georgia; of the threat to , the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. Multiple candidates affirmed their support for expansive abortion rights, citing widespread

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