http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18632802Misperceptions About McCain's Abortion Stance
"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
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.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
