{"id":3260,"date":"2008-05-22T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-22T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/05\/pro-life-democrats-turning-red-to-blue\/"},"modified":"2008-05-22T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-22T13:00:00","slug":"pro-life-democrats-turning-red-to-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/05\/pro-life-democrats-turning-red-to-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-life Democrats turning red to blue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Jim Scarantino<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThree for three!\u201d Democrats cheered after they won their third interim congressional election, taking seats previously held by the GOP.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cTwo for three!\u201d cheered a growing faction within the Democrat Party. Two of those three successful Democrats are strongly pro-life.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Don Cazayoux<\/a> of Louisiana<\/st1:state> and Travis Childers<\/a> of Mississippi<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> made their opposition to abortion a central feature of their campaign. They join the ranks of pro-life Democrats elected to Congress in 2006 who have enabled Democratic control in both houses. Pro-life Democrats now occupy governor\u2019s mansions in Colorado<\/st1:state>, Kansas<\/st1:state>, Virginia<\/st1:state>, West Virginia<\/st1:state> and Wyoming<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> and helped win majorities in several state legislatures.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>, none of the Democrats running to replace Republicans in the 1st and 2nd congressional districts can be considered pro-life.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Harry Teague<\/a>, according to his spokesman, believes \u201cabortion is wrong. But that choice is a personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her God.\u201d Translated, he\u2019s pro-choice. Bill McCamley\u2019s<\/a> Web site points out his Roman Catholicism, but his campaign says he is pro-choice.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Michelle Lujan Grisham<\/a> and Rebecca Vigil-Giron<\/a>, also Catholics, are pro-choice. Vigil-Giron says \u201cI am pro-life,\u201d but she does not oppose Roe v. Wade and supports abortion if a mother does not want to put her child up for adoption.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Martin Heinrich\u2019s<\/a> support of the National Abortion Rights Action League<\/a> aligns him with some hard-line pro-abortion positions. Robert Pidcock<\/a> holds a libertarian, anti-government-intrusion approach to abortion.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

McCamley, Grisham and Heinrich have echoed Bill Clinton\u2019s line about wanting abortion to be \u201csafe, legal and rare.\u201d Abortion opponents correctly argue that Clinton<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s waffle keeps abortion unsafe and lethal for the youngest human life in the equation.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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<\/a> and Steve Pearce<\/a> to Washington<\/st1:state><\/st1:place> to overlook their objections to abortion.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

A question of affinity<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Polling data collected by Dr. Lona Atkeson of the University<\/st1:placetype> of New Mexico<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> suggests that abortion alone does not decide many elections. I think the impact of abortion on many voters is subtler than a single-issue knee jerk. The abortion issue plays an important role in what political scientists call \u201caffinity,\u201d the process by which voters determine whether they feel the candidate is a person whom they can trust and with whom they\u2019re comfortable.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Apply this to Barack Obama<\/a>. As a state legislator, he received a 100 percent NARAL rating. The general fact that Obama is pro-choice probably doesn\u2019t change any minds. But Republicans are reaching beyond shopworn labels to encourage voters to think twice about him.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Republicans are starting to hammer away at Obama\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That\u2019s how the abortion debate works. A candidate\u2019s 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\u2019s life, a candidate\u2019s pro-abortion stance presents an obstacle to developing affinity.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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\u2019s skull to cause brain death while a human heart still beats.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kirsten Day, executive director of Democrats for Life<\/a>, says a pro-life Democratic Party, or a party at least neutral on abortion rights, \u201cwould be unstoppable.\u201d Louisiana<\/st1:state> and Mississippi<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> prove her point. New Mexico<\/st1:state> may also make her point if pro-choice Democrats, in a terrible year for Republicans, fail to match the success of pro-life Democrats elsewhere in America<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>.<\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Scarantino<\/a> has been recognized as one of the country\u2019s best political columnists by the American Association of Alternative Newsweeklies<\/a>. His work has been published in more than 50 newspapers. You can contact him at jrscarantino@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jim Scarantino \u201cThree for three!\u201d Democrats cheered after they won their third interim congressional election, taking seats previously held by the GOP. \u201cTwo for three!\u201d cheered a growing faction within the Democrat Party. Two of those three successful Democrats are strongly pro-life. Don Cazayoux of Louisiana and Travis Childers of Mississippi made their opposition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scarantino-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}