Posted on 02/03/2008 1:52:10 PM PST by Mr. Brightside
Election 2008
Misperceptions About McCain's Abortion Stance
by Julie Rovner
Weekend Edition Saturday, February 2, 2008 · Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's departure from the presidential race earlier this week means that once again, whoever the Republicans nominate will oppose abortion rights and whoever the Democrats nominate will be pro-choice. Many Republican voters, however, seem to believe, incorrectly, that the current Republican front-runner, Arizona Sen. John McCain, supports abortion rights, too.
The misperception is interesting, considering that McCain has not attempted to keep his pro-life views a secret. Here's how he put it on an appearance last year on NBC's Meet the Press:
"I have stated time after time after time that Roe v Wade was a bad decision, that I support a woman — the rights of the unborn — that I have fought for human rights and human dignity throughout my entire political career," McCain said. "To me, it's an issue of human rights and human dignity."
And while now former candidate Fred Thompson, the former senator from Tennessee, won the coveted endorsement from the National Right to Life Committee, McCain's voting record on the issue is just fine, says David O'Steen, the group's executive director.
"He's been very consistent; he hasn't changed his position," O'Steen says. He says that his group has supported McCain in every one of his senate races. "We've always considered him pro-life," he says.
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, says her group has always considered McCain pro-life as well. And it's not just abortion, she says.
"He voted against family planning, he voted against the freedom of access to clinic entrances — that was about violence against women in clinics," Keenan says, adding, "He voted against funding for teen pregnancy-prevention programs, and making sure that abstinence only was medically accurate. This is very, very extreme."
Yet in Florida's GOP primary on Jan. 29, McCain won 45 percent of Republican voters who said abortion should be legal. That's nearly twice the total of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who used to be pro-choice, but now says he has changed his mind. And Giuliani, who says he still is pro-choice, received just 19 percent of those pro-choice voters.
NARAL's Keenan thinks it's because voters see McCain splitting with Republicans on so many other issues, they assume he must split with them when it comes to abortion as well.
"I think it comes back to that moderate maverick image that he's tried to portray," Keenan says. "But when you peel the onion back, the record shows that this is a guy who's been very anti-choice since he entered the U.S. House of Representatives back in 1983."
Those pro-choice McCain voters may also remember the very public feud McCain has had with the National Right to Life Committee. But that argument wasn't over abortion, says the NRLC's O'Steen; it was over the campaign finance measure that McCain sponsored with Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat.
"The McCain-Feingold Act limited the ability of non-PACS [political action committees] to even mention the name of a candidate within 30 days of a primary, or 60 days of a general election," O'Steen says.
In other words, the dispute was a freedom of speech issue.
McCain's pro-life record isn't totally spotless: He did vote in favor of expanding federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. But both pro-choice and pro-life groups say that if McCain becomes the Republican nominee, they'll work hard to make sure voters know what his abortion position really is.
Sure, McCai’s pro-life. Why am I not buying that?
Maybe it’s stem -cell research. Maybe it’s his public statement that he wouldn’t appoint anyone like Alito. Or maybe it’s that I just think he’ll say or do anything to get elected, and I don’t think he’s honest.
He’s made a point of pride out of screwing conservatives every chance he’s gotten. Why should we believe that he’ll turn down the opportunity to poke us in the eyes on this issue?
“Conservatives will not be fooled again by McCain’s rhetoric.”
Wait...Romney is the one with the rhetoric. First, he runs for office twice in 1994 and 2002 promising that he would preserve and protect the right to choose, then a year before seeking the nomination of the prolife party at age 59, he has an epiphany and decides he is prolife (how convenient). Then the next year in 2006, his last year in office, he collaborates with Ted Kennedy to get mandatory health coverage in Massachusetts, which expands taxpayer funded abortions ($50 copay) to all women making salaries at 300% of the poverty level and below (up to $32,000 for a single woman with no dependents; more if she is married and has children)
Mitt Romney’ s rhetoric and his record are proabortion, and these publicly funded $50 copay abortions cost him the NRLC endorsement and are the real reason why evangelicals are not supporting him.
McCain has a less than perfect pro-life voting record.
But at least he DOES have a pro-life voting record, as opposed to Mitt Romney.
Your mom
Thought I'd respond at the same level of discourse.
I have a fence around my backyard and it doesn't scare me a bit. Keeps the neighborhood hooligans out of my pool.
#29 “Conservatives absolutely must stop McCain even if it means enduring a Clinton 2 Administration.’
Wrong...If we do not vote and allow Clinton or Obama to win by default, we will have 2 more liberals on the Supreme Court and it could be another 20-30 years before there is any chance to overturn Roe v Wade..We must all vote to stop the Dems and get our man into the WH who will make the right appointments PLUS we need a Rep Congress to back him up...
Conservatives are concerned about a lot of issues with McCain.
The abortion issue is not the only one.
Check out Krystols op ed in New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/opinion/04kristol.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
You shouldn’t throw stones.
It is completely and utterly absurd to say that Hillary and McCain are for all practical purposes the same. Yes, some McCain supporters tend to whitewash some of his genuine faults. However, it is nothing like the disinformation being propagated that McCain is a leftist or communist or Hillaryesque figure. Clearly, and beyond all reasonable doubt, he is not a leftist. Sure, he is not inherently loyal to the party or conservatives, but don’t paint him as something he is not.
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