A sign that Democratic leaders are beginning to get it is the plan—promoted by leaders such as Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton—to lower abortion rates by preventing unwanted pregnancies. Full-throated support of this effort, and a recognition that abstinence education plays a role in lowering teen pregnancy rates (along with birth control), puts Democrats alongside the majority of voters on this difficult issue, and it is especially appealing to moderate evangelicals.
This is a rhetorical sleight of hand which entirely ignores the relevant policy debate. The question is whether sex education in public schools should be "abstinence only," which involves telling teenagers that they shouldn't have sex and not providing them with any actual information that might be useful should they decide to actually go ahead and do it, or whether sex education should be more comprehensive and actually include information about contraceptive methods. I'm happy to be corrected but I'm not aware of any evidence that "abstinence education plays a role in lowering teen pregnancy rates (along with birth control)" because I don't believe there's any sex ed program in this country which doesn't include, in part, abstinence education.
I'm not especially convinced that a "full-throated" effort to package all this stuff as a way to reduce unwanted pregnancies is really going to swing this voting bloc. I could be wrong. But there's nothing new about "we'll tell kids not to have sex but also tell them about condoms." That's pretty much how sex ed worked until the abstinence crowd showed up and decided without evidence it was much more effective to just make shit up.
Does "reducing unwanted pregnancies" trump "sex is evil and icky" among a big group of evangelical Christian voters who vote Republican but could be convinced to vote for Democrats if only they'd improve their messaging? I'm pretty skeptical. And making this argument by trying to brush the sexual morality issue under the rug doesn't help to convince me. The point is not that there isn't an evangelical Christian Left, the point is I just doubt that there's a big bunch of evangelical Christians who currently vote Republican and could be persuaded to switch sides over stuff like this. The concept of abstinence education doesn't appeal to people because it actually reduces unwanted pregnancies, it appeals because they have serious sexual morality issues. We're talking about appealing to the "sex is icky" crowd by pointing out that "sex is icky but abortion is ickier so your daughter should know how to get a birth control prescription just in case she has icky sex." This doesn't sound like much of a winner.
The women on the left I know aren't single issue voters, they're concerned about a whole range of issues. But the ones I know who are politically active in a serious way are active in large part because of sex and reproductive rights. Perhaps we should start pandering to them a bit more. There are a lot of unmarried single women who aren't much interested in hearing about how icky sex is.