An unequivocal statement from Democratic leaders that everyone in the party must adhere to that agenda would earn support from abortion rights activists, but it could alienate potential voters and Democratic hopefuls running for office in Republican-dominated parts of the country. The result has been a party struggling to clarify its stance.

Perez acknowledged last week that Democrats won’t always be in lockstep on abortion. “If you demand fealty on every single issue, then it’s a challenge,” he said. Yet a few days later, Perez said that Democrats should support the party’s pro-abortion rights stance in a statement interpreted in and out of the party as a reversal from his earlier remarks, and a call for ideological purity on abortion.

“Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” Perez said, adding that “every candidate who runs as a Democrat should” share the “Democratic Party’s position on women’s fundamental rights.”

The DNC’s message on abortion may alienate red-state Democrats at a time when the party is trying to expand its reach into conservative parts of the country it may need to win over if it wants to reclaim the White House and Congress. And moderate Democrats representing red states are distancing themselves from Perez’s remarks.

“I couldn’t disagree more with what Tom Perez said, I think it’s not correct that our party should have litmus tests about who wants to join our party,” Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who has a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s congressional scorecard and represents a state Donald Trump won, said in an interview. “We may disagree on various issues, and I just don’t think we should say ever anyone is not welcome in our party based on one of those issues.”

“What Mr. Perez said makes no sense to me. This is a deeply personal issue, and we should be about respecting one another,” Indiana Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly, who identifies as pro-life and has a 60 percent Planned Parenthood rating, said in an interview.

“I don’t know why we would want to start walking away from folks, like myself, who have a personal conviction on the pro-life issue,” Donnelly said. “We ought to be able to include everyone, as opposed to saying ‘no, we don’t want these folks, even though they fight with us on jobs, even though they fight with us for economic rights, even though they fight with us on healthcare.’ It just seems to me to be very, very short-sighted.”

To some extent, progressive Democrats are also divided over whether the party should embrace Democrats even if they have convictions against abortion, or make clear that there’s no place for any lawmaker unwilling to strictly adhere to the Democratic Party platform.