There have been seven Democratic presidential debates so far, and none of them have featured any questions about abortion.
There have now been seven Democratic debates. None have asked about abortion.
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The candidates have mentioned reproductive rights on their own a few times, but not because a moderator raised the issue.
This omission has been a source of frustration for reproductive rights advocates. Tonight was no exception.
So now making it through a full SEVEN debates without bothering to #askaboutabortion. We want to know the candidates' plans! #DemDebate
— Robyn Swirling (@RSwirling) March 7, 2016
It shouldn't bear repeating, but evidently it does. It doesn't matter if Clinton and Sanders agree on abortion. It should still come up.
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) March 7, 2016
Advocates even petitioned the first all-woman debate moderator team at PBS to ask about it. It didn’t work.
Granted, abortion hadn’t been in the national news much before that debate. But there were also no questions about abortion at the debate following a shooting spree that killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. And there were no questions about abortion at this debate, days after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the biggest abortion case in decades.
This is a problem, advocates say, because a lot of people don’t know how severely abortion is being restricted at the state level.
Folks in my mentions think the only question about abortion is "for or against?" So, yup. Candidates need to be talking about it. #DemDebate
— Rebecca Cohen (@GynoStar) March 7, 2016
There’s another Democratic debate on Wednesday night. Maybe the eighth time will be the charm.
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