By Jim Scarantino
“Three for three!” Democrats cheered after they won their third interim congressional election, taking seats previously held by the GOP.
“Two for three!” cheered a growing faction within the Democrat Party. Two of those three successful Democrats are strongly pro-life.
Don Cazayoux of
In
Harry Teague, according to his spokesman, believes “abortion is wrong. But that choice is a personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her God.” Translated, he’s pro-choice. Bill McCamley’s Web site points out his Roman Catholicism, but his campaign says he is pro-choice.
Michelle Lujan Grisham and Rebecca Vigil-Giron, also Catholics, are pro-choice. Vigil-Giron says “I am pro-life,” but she does not oppose Roe v. Wade and supports abortion if a mother does not want to put her child up for adoption.
Martin Heinrich’s support of the National Abortion Rights Action League aligns him with some hard-line pro-abortion positions. Robert Pidcock holds a libertarian, anti-government-intrusion approach to abortion.
McCamley, Grisham and Heinrich have echoed Bill Clinton’s line about wanting abortion to be “safe, legal and rare.” Abortion opponents correctly argue that
In order for these candidates to win, they will have to convince the same pro-life independents, Hispanics and conservative Democrats who repeatedly sent Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce to
A question of affinity
Polling data collected by Dr. Lona Atkeson of the
Apply this to Barack Obama. As a state legislator, he received a 100 percent NARAL rating. The general fact that Obama is pro-choice probably doesn’t change any minds. But Republicans are reaching beyond shopworn labels to encourage voters to think twice about him.
Republicans are starting to hammer away at Obama’s vote against the Illinois Born Alive Protection Act. This law would have required efforts to save children who survived an abortion attempt. Sometimes during an abortion procedure suddenly a living, breathing newborn is in the room. Before Congress in 2002 passed a national Born Alive Protection Act, the child could be either killed or thrown alive into medical waste.
Even if you admire Senator Obama (as I do), for all but the most closed minds and hardest hearts his vote creates doubts. How could he justify killing a child that emerges alive? What kind of person would countenance something like that?
That’s how the abortion debate works. A candidate’s stance affects how voters respond on a personal level. For every voter who views abortion as homicide, and for the plurality, if not majority of Americans who oppose abortion except in cases of rape, incest and danger to the mother’s life, a candidate’s pro-abortion stance presents an obstacle to developing affinity.
Republicans are not hiding their efforts to hold onto pro-life Democrats and independents. If Democratic legislation to repeal the ban on partial-birth abortion becomes an issue, the race will be even harder. Just imagine the Democratic candidate being asked during a televised debate to describe the gruesome procedures used in a late-term abortion, practices that include crushing the child’s skull to cause brain death while a human heart still beats.
Kirsten Day, executive director of Democrats for Life, says a pro-life Democratic Party, or a party at least neutral on abortion rights, “would be unstoppable.”
Scarantino has been recognized as one of the country’s best political columnists by the American Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. His work has been published in more than 50 newspapers. You can contact him at jrscarantino@yahoo.com.