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Go Home Life Sentence

AUGUST 27, 2008

Life Sentence

BY SARAH BLUSTAIN

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

John McCain was mad. Fuming mad. It was then the early days of his political career, and he had paid an unscheduled visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Mesa, which was within his Arizona congressional district. That's when Gloria Feldt, then the CEO of the group's local chapter, got a phone call. "Congressman McCain is here," a staffer told her, "and he is screaming and it is upsetting the patients."

Feldt says McCain had always refused her offers to visit a clinic, but had apparently decided to make a spot visit of his own. What had raised his ire was a shelf containing information about Title X federal funding, which some clinics receive to support non-abortion-related reproductive health care for low-income women. McCain was upset that the clinic provided paper for people to write their representatives in support of the legislation, which requires constant advocacy because Congress must reauthorize it every year. "His immediate and incorrect assumption," says Feldt, "was that we were using federal funds to pay for lobbying." Feldt got on the phone. "He was screaming, 'I am going to defund her, I am going to get the federal government to defund you.'... [H]e rants and he raves and finally he hangs up on me."

Most voters would not recognize that passionate crusader as John McCain. Which is hardly surprising. McCain has spent years manipulating the public's perception of his stance on abortion and reproductive health. He's been against overturning Roe v. Wade and he's been for it; he's embraced the idea of a pro-choice running mate and, more recently, recoiled from it. It's no wonder the public is confused.

The right has been twisted in knots for years over whether McCain respects "life" enough to earn its support. And, among Democrats and pro-choicers, the confusion is even greater. Poll after poll shows them unclear on McCain's positions. Planned Parenthood's president Cecile Richards says that, even after McCain secured the Republican nomination this year, long-time Planned Parenthood supporters she met with didn't know the candidate's position on Roe v. Wade. McCain's maverick reputation and his calculated political meanderings on choice add up to one thing: The public thinks McCain just might be a moderate on abortion.

The fact that he's not could matter a great deal in the election. According to one poll, about half of all women voters backing McCain said they were pro-choice, including 36 percent who say they strongly support Roe. More importantly, these women voters think that McCain might agree with them on abortion. The same research found that "more than seven in ten pro-choice McCain supporters ... have yet to learn that McCain's position on abortion is directly at odds with their own." And the issue is not that they don't care. One June poll found that, when Democratic women voters in twelve battleground states learned McCain's position on abortion, Obama gained twelve points among them.

McCain's views may matter especially to Hillary Clinton supporters, many of whom are pro-choice; according to syndicated columnist Froma Harrop, "[T]hey'll want to know this: Would McCain stock the Supreme Court with foes of Roe v. Wade?" But, she writes, "The answer is unclear but probably 'no.' While McCain has positioned himself as 'pro-life' during this campaign, his statements over the years show considerable latitude on the issue."

That, however, is simply not true. There is no "latitude" in McCain's position on abortion. Interviews with dozens of people who have dealt with him on the issue--pro-choice and pro-life activists, Hill staffers, McCain confidants, pollsters, and staffers--along with a two-and-a-half-decade-long perfectly anti-abortion voting record, make that clear. And his record on related issues, like contraception, is no better. "I think it is outrageous that people give him a pass, as they gave George W. Bush a pass," reflects Feldt. "John McCain will be that and worse."

 

The confounding problem with Mr. Straight Talk is that his public statements on abortion have been anything but straight. This meandering began most seriously in 1999, as McCain made his first bid for the presidency. On the eve of that campaign he told the San Francisco Chronicle that he'd "love to see a point where [Roe] is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. ... But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations." That same year, he suggested that Republicans revert to the language of the party's 1980 platform, which affirmed GOP support of a constitutional amendment to defend the unborn, but also "recognize[d] differing views on this question among Americans in general--and in our own Party." McCain said, "I believe we are an inclusive party, and we can be so without changing our principles." He also told reporters that if his then-15-year-old daughter got pregnant, they would make "a private decision that we would share within our family and not with anyone else"--a response that to some ears sounded a lot like code for the right to privacy and abortion. McCain even said he would consider a pro-choice running mate.

It was ideologically moderate but politically dangerous positions like these that earned McCain his reputation as a "maverick"--and that got him creamed by the GOP's right-wing base. The National Right to Life Committee helped destroy him in the all-important South Carolina primary, running ads that said, "If you want a strongly pro-life president ... don't support John McCain."

So, this time around, McCain has swerved sharply to the right. The campaign website of the same man who, eight years ago, said Roe shouldn't be overturned now says, "John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench." He sent heartfelt words to the National Right to Life Committee's annual convention: "I am pro-life," he told them, "because I know what it is like to live without human rights, where human life is accorded no inherent value. And I know that I have a personal obligation to advocate human rights wherever they are denied ... when we fail to respect the inherent dignity of all human life, born or unborn. " McCain's advisers have said that he will not fight to soften the Republican platform on abortion, and McCain himself has said that it would be "difficult" to choose a pro-choice running mate.

To many voters, the McCain of 2000 is the true McCain, with his latest statements constituting an understandable, if undignified, pander to the GOP's right-wing base. They simply cannot believe that the maverick who defied the party's hard-core social conservatives on embryonic stem cell research and campaign finance reform would toe the conservative line on abortion. But, in truth, it was his 2000 position on abortion that was the outlier--a short-lived attempt to court the center after George W. Bush had locked up the religious right's support. McCain is not, and never was, a moderate.

 

During his political career, McCain has participated in 130 reproductive health-related votes on Capitol Hill; of these, he voted with the anti-abortion camp in 125. McCain has consistently backed rights for the unborn, voting to cover fetuses under the State Children's Health Insurance Program and supporting the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which allowed a "child in utero" to be recognized as a legal victim of a crime. He has voted in favor of the global gag rule, which prevents U.S. funds from going to international family-planning clinics that use their own money to perform abortions, offer information about abortion, or take a pro-choice stand. And he has voted to appoint half a dozen anti-abortion judges to the federal bench, as well as Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. During the Bork hearings, McCain attacked the Court's creation of a right to privacy in Roe v. Wade: "Whether one is pro-or anti-abortion," McCain said in an October 1987 hearing, "it is difficult to argue that the Court's opinion is not constitutionally suspect."

Some of these votes were, politically speaking, no-brainers for anyone vaguely in the pro-life camp. But McCain also joined efforts supported only by the radical wing of his party. He voted, for instance, with only one-fifth of the Senate to remove family-planning grants from a 1988 spending bill and with only 18 senators that same year against allowing Medicaid to pay for abortions in cases of rape or incest.

In 1994, the year after abortion provider David Gunn was killed outside a Florida clinic, McCain voted with 29 members of the Senate against establishing penalties for violent or threatening interference outside abortion clinics. Many solidly pro-life Republicans--Mitch McConnell, Kit Bond, John Danforth--voted in favor of the bill, called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). "We tried to get as many co-sponsors as we could, and we postured the thing as anti-vigilante violence," recalls Judy Appelbaum, a Washington lawyer who was counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy at the time and the lead Hill staffer on the bill. "We argued that, even if you oppose abortion, you should not condone these actions." According to Appelbaum, law enforcement officials, newspaper editorialists, health care providers, and law-and-order politicians all supported the bill. "There were a number of very anti-choice senators who voted for FACE," she says, "and [McCain] wasn't one of them." Instead, McCain joined senators like Orrin Hatch and Jesse Helms in opposition.

Conservative writer Charlotte Allen summarized McCain's congressional career well last year in The Weekly Standard, noting, "[He] has never failed to cast his vote in favor of whatever abortion restrictions are arguably permitted under Roe v. Wade: bans against partial-birth abortion, abortions on military bases, transporting minors across state lines to obtain abortions behind their parents' backs, and government funding for abortion both in the United States and abroad. ... In addition, McCain has voted to confirm every 'strict constructionist' judge ... appointed by the various Republican presidents who have served during his tenure." And, she added, "Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America...consistently award him ratings of absolute zero on their scorecards."

 

The record, however, doesn't seem to be enough to convince the electorate that McCain's votes honestly represent his beliefs. But, as I learned on a recent trip to Arizona, people who have known McCain for years confirm that when it comes to abortion, he's a true, if quiet, believer.

My first stop in Phoenix was the office of Grant Woods, who served as McCain's chief of staff during his first term in the House, helped with his campaigns throughout the 1980s, and is now a member of his Arizona Leadership Team. "I am very familiar with his position [on abortion]," reflected Woods, a cowboy-style lawyer, slow-talking and casual, who said that he embraces the true conservative position--that a woman should make her own decision rather than having the government make it for her. "It was one on which I disagreed with him from the beginning." Like many voters today, Woods said he "wondered about the depth of [McCain's] commitment to that position initially because I had the impression that it wasn't something that he'd given a lot of thought to. " But, over the years, he continued, "I was completely convinced that this was a very sincere position that he had thought through and arrived at." Woods recalled a number of conversations with McCain, including one "up in the mountains late at night," in which the lawyer suggested that reasonable minds could differ. "When we really explored it, it really came down [for] him to a sanctity-of-life question. ... He did get very emotional one time we talked about it. He truly believed."

The next day, I headed down to Tucson and spent most of the day in the gracious, pink adobe-style Arizona Inn. In the antique-filled sitting room, Dennis DeConcini, who served eight years in the Senate with McCain and got caught, with McCain, in the Keating Five scandal, was holding court, dishing his dislike for his fellow senator to this reporter and, he said, to others who were coming later in the day. He talked about McCain's furious temper, his lack of friends in the Senate, and his unwillingness to go to bat for Arizona. He said that, knowing the candidate as well as he does, "I don't think he would be a good president." But, if there's anything remotely positive that the anti-abortion DeConcini would say about McCain, it's this: "I think he's pro-life because he just can't be anything else. I think he's there."

And so it went through McCain's Arizona associates. Freddy Hershberger, who ran Barry Goldwater's Tucson office and herself served in the state legislature as a pro-choice Republican in the '90s, told me that, when she once said something which suggested that McCain shared her views on abortion, "He immediately said that nothing could be further from the truth...He all but smacked me down." Deb Gullett, who was McCain's chief of staff in the early '90s and was his top aide during the 2000 presidential campaign, is strongly pro-choice and a force for moderate Republicanism in Arizona. She believes McCain has a "fundamental pro-life position" and said that she never pushed him on the issue. "What would be the point of belaboring the discussion?"

Carolyn Gerster, an elderly but still practicing doctor who helped found Arizona Right to Life and the National Right to Life Committee, recalled meeting with McCain when he was first in the House. The meeting was supposed to last 30 minutes, but the pair spoke for two hours. She says McCain has always been available when she's asked for his time and cites his support for embryonic stem cell research and campaign finance reform as the only times he's disturbed his pro-life record. Another prominent anti-abortion activist, John Jakubczyk, gave me a copy of a 1982 Arizona Right to Life dinner program in which McCain placed an ad and showed me a folder thick with letters from McCain; he explained that the Arizona pro-life community endorsed McCain, during his first run for office, over other anti-abortion candidates because it thought he was most likely to win, because it trusted his pro-life views, and because it believed he would be effective in pursuing its agenda.

 

Despite all this evidence, McCain's anti-abortion fervor hasn't registered with the public--in no small part because, in addition to his waffling on choice in the 2000 campaign, he hardly sounds like a true believer on other reproductive-health-related issues. When pressed to speak about them, he often evinces stunning ignorance, a fact that helps reassure the moderate middle that he could not possibly be as conservative as his record suggests. In early July, for example, a reporter raised the issue of whether it was "unfair" that insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control. His response was painful to watch: "I certainly do not want to discuss that issue," he said immediately. She then asked about his votes against legislation requiring insurance plans to cover prescription birth control, legislation the anti-contraception right strongly opposed. He rubbed his mouth, rolled his eyes, flexed his fingers, crossed his arms, and more, before admitting, "I don't know enough about it to give you an informed answer." Finally, he told the reporter that he did not recall how he voted. "It's something that I had not thought much about," he added.

At another press conference, when a journalist asked him whether he thought contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV, he paused--for much too long--then answered, "You've stumped me." The reporter asked whether U.S. taxpayer money should fund contraception to prevent aids in Africa. "I'm not very wise on it," McCain said. What about grants for sex education? A long pause, then, "Ahhh. I think I support the president's policy." And, when the reporter pressed again, he finally said (after a reported twelve-second pause), "I've never gotten into these issues before"--an odd statement, given that he has voted on legislation related to all of them.

Clearly, these were not the responses of a devoted social conservative. What's more, on a few notable occasions, McCain has outright defied the right wing. The most prominent of these was his ongoing support, throughout the '90s, of embryonic stem cell research, on which he believed Congress had to "act affirmatively to support research to save lives." People who know him say that his support was a response to watching his friend and mentor Representative Morris Udall suffer from Parkinson's and that he believed his position was entirely consistent with his pro-life view. His leadership on campaign finance reform also infuriated social conservatives, who feared they would lose lobbying power, though that clearly wasn't McCain's intention.

But the public should not be distracted by these deviations from right-wing orthodoxy. McCain may or may not truly understand the broader definition of "pro-life," which these days also includes opposition to traditional and emergency contraception, family-planning, euthanasia, and related federal funding both here and abroad. (Playing the bumbling fool and satisfying no one is certainly an easier escape than trying to satisfy all.) But, as on abortion, both data and anecdote show there is little latitude in his positions. He has voted to end the Title X family-planning program, which pays for everything from birth control to breast cancer screenings and which is a target for the right because the recipients of these dollars also tend to be clinics that offer contraception to unwed and underage women and that offer abortions. He has backed largely discredited abstinence-only education, voting in 1996 to take $75 million from the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant to establish such a program; ten years later, he voted against teen-pregnancyprevention programs. He has supported parental notification laws governing not only abortion but contraception for teens, and, though he didn't want to talk to the press about it, he's voted against requiring insurance companies to cover birth control. In international family affairs, McCain has voted not only in favor of the global gag rule, but also to defund the United Nations group that provides family-planning services (not abortions) for poor women, and to spend a third of overseas HIV/AIDS prevention funds on abstinence education.

Moreover, say advocates, he is not open to dialogue. "Whether it's abortion care, birth control, or comprehensive sex education, McCain is not moderate or a maverick," says Donna Crane, policy director of NARAL Pro-Choice America and a key lobbyist on these questions. "We never ask--and we never hear pro-choice Republicans question--whether McCain will be with us on a vote. He's always on the wrong side."

Gloria Feldt says that, during her time in Arizona and later as president of the national Planned Parenthood Federation of America, her staff never tried to talk to McCain about abortion, but they did approach him about family-planning. He always refused to meet with them; he even refused to meet prominent Republicans on the Planned Parenthood board. "When I went to his D.C. office, I would be put into his waiting room forever and ever and ever, and eventually a staff person would come out and put me off, and finally I just gave up," Feldt recalls.

Sharlene Bozack was public affairs director for Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona between 1989 and 1995. One day, she came to D.C. for PPFA's annual day of lobbying and encountered McCain on the Hill. "I relive it every time I see the man on TV," she told me over the phone from Phoenix. She and Feldt had run into McCain, introduced themselves, and asked if they could speak with him. He agreed, and they got on the train that runs between Capitol buildings. Bozack was talking to him about international contraception access. Suddenly, she recalls, he was no longer calm, cool, and collected. "He turned toward me and put his index finger out and started pounding me in the chest saying, 'You know my position on this,' and 'How dare you ask me about this,' and 'You are just trying to intimidate me.'"

 

So as not to alienate the Clinton middle--and perhaps in order to keep his foot out of his mouth--McCain has not voluntarily spoken on the campaign trail about many issues dear to social conservatives. (The McCain campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.) Instead, he has used one issue--judicial nominations--as his proxy. In a May campaign speech at Wake Forest University, McCain slammed "judicial activism"--a common barb among social conservatives--and promised to restore "humility" to the federal courts and to nominate Supreme Court justices in the mold of Samuel Alito and John Roberts.

McCain also created a 48-person Justice Advisory Committee that would, in theory, help a President McCain select nominees to the federal and Supreme courts. That committee features a host of legal minds from the Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 administrations. Its headline names include senators Sam Brownback, Jon Kyl, and Trent Lott, all of whom have thoroughly pro-life pedigrees. Other members include William Barr, who wrote a Department of Justice opinion in 1992 opposing the Freedom of Choice Act on both anti-abortion and federalist grounds; Charles Cooper, who under Reagan headed the Office of Legal Counsel, where he helped draft regulations that would prevent family-planning clinics that take federal funds from providing abortion counseling; Charles Fried, solicitor general under Reagan, who helped write a lengthy administration brief in Thornburgh v. ACOG that made the case for overturning Roe on anti-abortion and states-rights grounds; and Thomas Merrill, who was U.S. deputy solicitor general and co-author of the Reagan administration's amicus brief in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services asking the Court to overturn Roe. No member of the committee who has been active on reproductive health issues represents a pro-choice or even a moderately pro-life position.

It is clear that McCain is taking no chances with the right this time around. The question is whether pro-choice voters are going to take a chance on McCain. "No matter where he might have been," says Planned Parenthood's Richards, "it's pretty clear where he is now." And what is pretty clear now is not half as clear as it would become were he elected president.

Sarah Blustain is a Senior Editor at The New Republic

 

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119 comments

Thank you for this article. I've been trying to spread the word as well, and it's shocking how few people recognize his stance.

- lk77

August 11, 2008 at 3:41pm

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This piece provides some insight into McCain's views on abortion(which I would have thought were obviously pro-life, but yes, have not always been clearly articulated), but would TNR consider branding a pro-choice lawmaker a "pro-choice zealot?" And arguing that McCain's response to a reporter's question posing a hypothetical scenario in which his own daughter was pregnant betrays pro-choice sympathies is misguided--McCain gave a reasonable response to an intrusive question that should never have been asked. The ad run in 2000 saying that voters who want a "strong pro-life president" shouldn't vote for McCain is shoddy evidence as well--single-issue groups will pick up on any sign of a less-than-fanatical devotion to their cause and call it weakness, particularly in TV ads.

- Amy

August 12, 2008 at 1:28am

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This is a complex and not-easy-to-answer subject. In fact the right answer may be somewhere between outright pro-life or pro-choice. It should not be seen as a weakness for one to confuse, or even flip-flop on the issue, as I find myself do. After all, we are talking about human rights and undue health burdens and significant medical waste/costs on both spectrums. Pro-choice policy ought to couple with extended public education of the importance in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Perhaps even a "three stikes you are no longer allowed abortions" law? I believe the choice is ultimately women's but a sensible policy should include laws to minimize the number of abortions and related costs.

- paenca

August 12, 2008 at 2:26am

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Yeah good. It's one reason why I'm voting for him. I am against the genocide of the unborn.

- White Womyn for McCain

August 12, 2008 at 7:58am

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And just exactly what could anyone say is wrong with protecting innocent life? Has it ever occured to any of you baby killers exactly how obsurd it is to put the convienience of a woman that does not want to be burdened with a child above the rights of an innocent child?

- linda

August 12, 2008 at 8:02am

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Another reason to vote for McCain.

- Steven Dwellen

August 12, 2008 at 8:02am

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And is what is wrong for thinking that abortion is a method of birth control! Obama after all is the guy who voted for de facto murder of babies born alive during abortion by refusing medical help to them. NOW THAT IS DISGUSTING!!!!!!

- CRAMOS

August 12, 2008 at 8:20am

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"John McCain is a pro-life zealot" I know, isn't it great!

- Swing stater

August 12, 2008 at 8:30am

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Obama is a Baby Killing Monster How's that for a title...

- Tex

August 12, 2008 at 8:36am

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The tone of these articles is so odd. It's as if the authors could not conceive of the possibility of a well-meaning public figure acting openly and out of commendable motives to limit the destruction of fetuses, through abortion or through vivisection. He must be a nut, or a lurker, right? I'm a McCain supporter. It's been clear to me for a long time that he has a very clear voting record on the pro-life side. I don't find him disingenuous on this subject. His campaign website is quite open on the subject. Nor do I find him a "zealot." That's just a loaded word for someone who disagrees with you. Try to understand this: people who oppose abortion and embryonic stem cell vivisection do not hold this position because they need an excuse to limit your personal freedom. They do it because they believe it is wrong to destroy human beings, and they believe fetuses are human beings. You don't agree, fine, but quit acting like you can't understand where they're coming from. Infanticide would be convenient, too, and prohibiting it certainly limits our freedom, but that doesn't make the laws against infanticide fascist, or anti-feminist, or any of that other nonsense.

- Texan99

August 12, 2008 at 8:48am

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More American males since the '60s have been killed by the actions of feminist abortionists than by the decisions of any 'warmonger' in the Pentagon.

- Parsons

August 12, 2008 at 9:00am

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Thank you for shedding more light on Senator McCain's stance on abortion. It was encouraging to me to read it. I'll be voting for him in November.

- Jim Nagle

August 12, 2008 at 9:03am

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Oh, horrors--another pro-lifer! Women, run for the back alleys!! Your right to destroy the innocent human being within you is in imminent danger!!! Vote Obama--he'll fight to preserve that right even after birth!!!!

- Darren

August 12, 2008 at 9:12am

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What a thorough and enlightening article. Thank you for confirming my suspicions about McCain

- Joanne

August 12, 2008 at 9:33am

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If McCain is a "zealot", what does that make Obama with pro-abortion?

- Kevin W

August 12, 2008 at 9:36am

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This is a very good article. A rare case of solid, thorough research and good writing. As someone who cannot abide Obama, I'll admit this gives me pause. What of my view that, with a strong Democratic Congress, he wouldn't have the free rein Bush had on judicial nominations? After all, it's a tradeoff. I think Obama is unqualified and untrustworthy, with the capacity to do long-term damage to the Democratic Party. So, suppose McCain has the wrong views but would have to compromise. How weigh the comparative costs of either person as President? This really is a none-of-the-above year.

- MereMortal

August 12, 2008 at 9:41am

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I think Miss Cristi at Clintons4McCain would love this article. That is a misguided bunch if I ever saw one.

- scarlet fever

August 12, 2008 at 9:53am

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As a nurse who has witnessed the horror of a partial birth abortion I suggest that you see this barbaric practice in person before you call McCain a zealot. I think Obama's unconditional support for all abortions will be a more potent liability in the fall.

- Roberta

August 12, 2008 at 10:02am

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McCain is a "pro-life zealot?" Is this the opposite of a "baby killer zealot?" The title of your article gives you zero credibility. You are trying to connect with Hillary voters who are probbaly more angry after seeing how she was setup by Obama and horn-dog Edwards. McCain has treated Hillary wityh far more respect. I don't even like McCain but if Obama is the "pro-death zealot" than McCain has my vote.

- freddy

August 12, 2008 at 10:16am

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Once again our unscientific pagans try to impose their will on us. Biology 101 shows human life starting at conception. Anyone who disagrees does not know his biology. He is arguing philosophy, not science. So how far is it from killing humans in cold blood because of the stage of life they are in, to eating your enemies, once defeated. Once God is rejected all abominations are possible. The PhD who lacks the wisdom of God stands for "Piled higher & Deeper".

- RA

August 12, 2008 at 10:21am

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Having a clinic that receives federal funds actively pushing those that use the clinic to ask their Congress for more funds is at best a little seedy. Do they have to do this or not receive services or is it implied at all that that is the case? Not being able to interpret something so clear cut labels the other potential biases of the author. Also lets not act like Planned Parenthood is some saintly helper of the poor. They are an abortion provider. They make money as the largest provdier of abortions in the country. Somehow though they are treated like they help women make family decisions in a way that is too the woman's benefit and not their own. Who else gets this benefit of the doubt? If Roe v. Wade was overturned it would simply return the right to an abortion to the hands of voters and elected representatives. Isn't this how a Democracy is supposed to work? The voters would then be able to set whichever limits and conditions that they felt were appropriate on abortions. The popularity of pro choice/life is dependant on how you define them. If by pro choice you mean no limits on abortion then that view is in the minority. Just as if you mean pro life is no abortions allowed at all then that view is in the minority. Also what of the rights of the father's of the children? This supposed equal rights argument seems to put all of the rights as well as the burden of responsibility on the woman and takes them from the man. Not sure how this benefits women all that much. To try to claim that John McCain isn't for women's rights because he doesn't believe in unlimited access to abortion is not only absurd it puts him in the position of a large majority of Americans. If anything our society favors women now, if you think otherwise than you need to look at things more objectively. The pay gap is more of a gap in desires. Women want jobs that are in better enviroments and more friendly hours than men. Women are more likely to want more in life than an 80 hour a week job and to put more importance on family and relationships. This isn't a knock on women, if anything it is a knock on alot of men. Nobody who is old and dying says man if only I would have spent more time at work away from my family.

- AustinG

August 12, 2008 at 10:23am

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For those of you to young to remember: The BBC Reported: 1962: "Abortion mother returns home An American mother-of-four is on her way home amid a storm of controversy after being given a legal abortion in Sweden. Sherri Finkbine, a TV presenter from Phoenix in Arizona, was denied an abortion in her home state following intense negative publicity surrounding her case. The 30-year-old mother decided to terminate her fifth pregnancy after discovering that tranquilizers she had taken in the first few weeks of her pregnancy contained the drug Thalidomide. In recent months there has been increasing evidence suggesting Thalidomide causes severe foetal deformities including missing limbs, deafness and blindness. Public condemnation Mrs Finkbine, host of children's television programme "Romper Room", told her story to the local newspaper, believing it would alert other mothers in the same situation to the dangers of the drug. But she became the focus of an intense anti-abortion campaign and worldwide public condemnation. The negative publicity led her local hospital in Phoenix to withdraw a tentative offer of a legal abortion for fear they may be held criminally liable - the current law in Arizona states that abortion can only be carried out to save the mother's life. Mrs Finkbine and her husband, Robert, a school teacher, took the case to the Arizona State Supreme Court but were unsuccessful. Despite vilification from anti-abortionists across the United States and the world she flew to Sweden where the operation was carried out. After the operation it was confirmed that the foetus had no legs and only one arm . When she returned to Phoenix Mrs Finkbine's local doctor asked her to register with another physician. She was dismissed from her job, and her husband was suspended from his high school teaching post. Their children were hounded, anonymous death threats poured in by post and telephone and the press swarmed around their home" I remember Sherry. I have two daughters who grew up with choice. I will continue to support it. John McSain will appoint Alito and Scarlia look a-likes when the time comes. Not this time. Not this year.

- toritto

August 12, 2008 at 10:37am

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The truth is that McCain's positions on abortion, although clearly pro-life, are much closer to the mainstream than Barack Obama's. Barack Obama was one of only TWO US Senators to not vote for the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which offered legal protection for babies that miraculously survived an abortion. Even ardent pro-choice advocate, Senator Barbara Boxer, voted for this act and commented "Of course, we believe everyone should deserve the protection of this bill. ... Who could be more vulnerable than a newborn baby? So, of course, we agree with that. ... We join with an 'aye' vote on this. I hope it will, in fact, be unanimous." Apparently Barack Obama disagreed with Senator Boxer. This should come as no surprise as TWICE in the Illinois Senate, Obama blocked state bills that would have offered the same protections to these babies and he was and is an fervent supported of Partial Birth Abortion, a practive which the late Speaker of the House Patrick Moynihan desribed "comes as close to infanticide as anything I have seen." In fact, Michelle Obama has signed fundraising letters promising that Obama will be "tireless" in preserving Partial Birth Abortions. I know full well that there are many TNR readers who are strongly pro-choice and who have no queasiness about ANY abortion seeing the issue as completely as about the mother and her rights. However, most of America falls somewhere in the middle on this issue and while John McCain is clearly on the pro-life side of the issue, he is much closer to the center than Barack Obama who is, based on his past record and his rhetoric, by far, on the pro-choice extreme. In his entire political career, Obama has never voted for a single restriction on abortion and has consistently voted for federal funding for any and all abortions For his lockstep support, he has earned an A+ rating from NARAL. If, like Obama, you want unfettered abortions and taxpayers to fund them, you have your candidate. If like me, you can see BOTH sides of this issue, Obama's position on this subject may frighten you. I doubt that TNR will do a similar exploration of Obama's views, though.

- Vertas

August 12, 2008 at 11:10am

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The only reason my wife and I are voting for McCain is becasue he is pro life and we hope he has the opportunity to appoint more justices that are strict constituionalists in the view of the law.

- Jose Vazquez

August 12, 2008 at 11:14am

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Pure scare tactics. McCain isn't even talking about abortion. Besides, he will have a Dem Congress to deal with. I am far more scared that Iran will go nuclear on Obama's watch, than I am that Roe v. Wade will be abolished on McCain's.

- r-ennis

August 12, 2008 at 11:19am

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This is a good article. When it got started I asked myself whether you could support your thesis and persuade me of it. You have and did. But I still like the guy, prefer him viscerally to Obama, even though Obama represents by and large doemstic political positions I agree with. I think that your election may come to be decided on the basis of voters' preference for the candidates' foreign policy views and apparent inclinations. My gut tells me that here McCain has the edge.

- itzik basman

August 12, 2008 at 11:24am

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It continues to astound me that many in the media, including Blustain, insist on painting support for Roe v. Wade, which allows abortion for any reason, including matters of convenience and gender selection, and at any time, even when the fetus is viable, as a moderate position. The only thing that would be more extreme would be to adopt China's population control practices and start forcing women to abhort.

- RL, expat in the Middle East

August 12, 2008 at 11:46am

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Hmm: one guy supports life, one guy supports infanticide. Hmmm. Real tough choice for anyone who considers themself a human being.

- Jason

August 12, 2008 at 11:56am

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During a 2004 audience with executive Shiite clergy in Iraq, I had opportunity to close with a narrow question to the senior ayatollah: What is the Muslim position on when a soul is imputed to a human being? The ayatollah quickly raised his hand with his finger pointing towards me and retorted, "At conception!" To that, I replied that many, many millions of Western people held this same value; however, much of the information about Islam and (Arab) culture was compartment-ed amongst the religous, military, and political communities. The ayatollah smiled and said, "You know, it's really the politicians we can't trust!"

- G.W. Murray USMC (ret)

August 12, 2008 at 11:56am

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Thanks for the article. I'm now more inclined to vote for McCain.

- Greg A

August 12, 2008 at 12:07pm

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Whether or not the article is well-research and written is wholly irrelevant because the article is irrelevant. Only the already-dedicated left will be shocked. The already-dedicated right will be happy and further encouraged to vote McCain. Most of those who may be undecided (as I am) are likely to already assume that McCain is pro-life and Obama is pro-choice (as their basic party credos say). So, what's the point of wasting TNR "space" and time? Most people, upon reading even just the title are likely to say, "duh! So what's your point?"

- reb

August 12, 2008 at 12:13pm

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What is the difference between a pro-life zealot and pro-lifer? You either believe it's wrong to murder innocent unborn or you don't. I guess your a "zealot" in the eyes of those who are pro-choicers....or should I say abortion zealots?

- Dude

August 12, 2008 at 12:17pm

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Your candidate is a monster who endorses the literal murder of new born babies and you want to call McCain names? I'm not talking about abortion nor partial birth abortion. I'm talking about Obama's support for killing babies AFTER DELIVERY. Not one Senator, Dim-ocrat nor Republican, supported his position. He stands beyond the boundaries of even the looney left.

- Dimslie

August 12, 2008 at 12:22pm

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And Obama is on the vanguard supporting the culture of death. His support for partial birth abortion is unequivocal and his votes in the IL State legislature against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act prove it. I will take a pro-life zealot over someone who condones and supports death any day. Millions of babies are snuffed out in the wombs of African American women each year. It is the largest genocide visited upon any people in history. Obama's support for abortion rights is just another example of him wanting to pull the ladder up behind him. Wake up -- your savior is a plaster saint!

- Pete Kent

August 12, 2008 at 12:23pm

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1. mcCain wants Roe v. Wade to be a state issue, not a federal one. 2. He supports abortion in cases of incest and rape. 3. we don't know anything--from this article--about what other items were contained in the pro-life bills McCain voted in favor of. 4. BUT the idea that just bc we've a democratic congress behind us, doesn't mean the issue is "balanced." McCain would have the power to nominate supreme court justices. Ifyou're a 1 issue person, this gives a lot to think about.

- vector

August 12, 2008 at 12:39pm

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I'm REALLY trying to stay away from the abortion debate in the TNR blogs this year, because everyone knows it just goes round and round, and has for years. But Sarah Blustain does such a wonderful job here of answering Eric Zimmermann's question of last week, "What place can otherwise left-leaning pro-lifers find in the Democratic party?" (A: "None whatsoever.") So I just had to pen a quick note to thank her (and Zimmerman, and Kate Michelman and Kathy Kneer, whom he quoted in his article) for my quadrennial reminder of why a center-left independent like me can never be welcome in their party. Thanks, guys!

- dhauck

August 12, 2008 at 12:43pm

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John McCain will do nothing to stop abortion. Neither the Democrats or Republicans will heal this infected sore upon America. George Bush said 8 years ago that he would strive to change the abortion laws,but no progress has been made towards that goal. He started a war instead. Neither party holds the high ground on this issue. It's up to the individual to make right decision.

- Joe J.

August 12, 2008 at 12:48pm

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fetus = living human being killing a fetus = a perfectly fine & moral act Yes, opposing abortion makes you a horrible right wing zealot nazi.

- JohnB

August 12, 2008 at 12:49pm

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When Hillary Clinton supporters finally see how far right McCain (zealot was the perfect word for John McCain) is on the abortion issue, he will lose their votes in droves.....Probably all of the Clinton supporters are pro-choice, they will never vote for someone whose even further to the right on the abortion issue than George Bush is...Even Bush has said in past that the country was not ready for a ban on abortion, but McCain thinks Roe V Wade should be overturned... John McCain - when your position on abortion becomes clearer as this general election season progresses, say goodbye to all your Clinton supporter votes....

- Mike

August 12, 2008 at 1:04pm

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McCain will do little or nothing to keep selfish, depraved women from murdering their babies to avoid inconvenience. Abortion is never about health, it's a convenient method of birth control. Obama supports infanticide - to him, children are "punishment". A very sick individual. As are all liberal fascists.

- Rick

August 12, 2008 at 1:09pm

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Amy, the knee jerk conservative reaction on the death penalty is to ask, "What if it was your child who was killed?" Yet a journalist can't ask this to a politician?

- John Cuckti

August 12, 2008 at 1:12pm

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Judging by the comments to this story, most of your readers appear to be anti-abortion. I suspect it is because they, like Senator McCain, inherently recognize the simple principle that nobody, regardless of age, sex, religion, political philosophy, or financial situation, knows what is going to happen next.

- Gooch

August 12, 2008 at 1:13pm

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I find it shocking that so many people simply take it for granted that a woman has the right to take the life of her own child, and make it the centerpoint of their campaigning without actually caring to debate of WHY the sanctity of life is irrelevant when it comes to unborn children, instead masquerading the issue under the labels of "free choice" and "women's rights" instead of discussing it for what it is: murder.

- daniel

August 12, 2008 at 1:24pm

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Thanks for reminding me that McCain is the better choice of two not so great candidates. It is good to know he supports life, clearly Obama supports death.

- Bill

August 12, 2008 at 1:25pm

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Only a far-left liberal would describe someone who supports life as a "zealot". I've always found it funny that liberals like Ms. Bulstain are so eager to dispose of unborn babies, yet so fervently oppose death sentences for violent killers and rapists. Thank goodness we have a candidate in John McCain who will not support Ms. Bulstain's dream of abortion drive-thrus on every corner.

- Jay - Cincinnati

August 12, 2008 at 1:44pm

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Just outlawing abortions isn't enough. Pregant women can do plenty of things that endanger the health of their unborn children. So we'll also have to make it illegal for pregnant women to drink alcohol or soda or coffee or the wrong kind of herbal tea, smoke cigarettes, or wear their seatbelts incorrectly. Just to be safe, maybe we should make it illegal for them to ride cars at all. And since people can still smoke outside, we should probably just confine pregnant women to their homes, in order to protect their unborn children from possible second-hand smoke. In fact, since pregnant women who tried to get abortions are already being thrown into jail (it is illegal, after all), we should probably just incarcerate all pregnant women. After all, it's the best way to insure the health and well-being of their unborn children. Of course, early on in a pregnancy you can't really tell whether a women's with child or not, and we can't risk anything bad happening to those precious blastocysts, so we should probably lock up all women, just to be on the safe side.

- Sarcastro

August 12, 2008 at 1:46pm

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Just outlawing abortions isn't enough. Pregant women can do plenty of things that endanger the health of their unborn children. So we'll also have to make it illegal for pregnant women to drink alcohol or soda or coffee or the wrong kind of herbal tea, smoke cigarettes, or wear their seatbelts incorrectly. Just to be safe, maybe we should make it illegal for them to ride cars at all. And since people can still smoke outside, we should probably just confine pregnant women to their homes, in order to protect their unborn children from possible second-hand smoke. In fact, since pregnant women who tried to get abortions are already being thrown into jail (it is illegal, after all), we should probably just incarcerate all pregnant women. After all, it's the best way to insure the health and well-being of their unborn children. Of course, early on in a pregnancy you can't really tell whether a women's with child or not, and we can't risk anything bad happening to those precious blastocysts, so we should probably lock up all women, just to be on the safe side.

- Sarcastro

August 12, 2008 at 1:53pm

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4000 does not equal 35,000,000

- Ziggy in JC

August 12, 2008 at 2:05pm

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Jason nailed it: Hmm: one guy supports life, one guy supports infanticide. Hmmm. Real tough choice for anyone who considers himself a human being. The American people want contraints on abortion and PP is "going to the matresses" to obtain an unrestricted right to kill all the babies that they can. If TNR is unhappy, I am ecstatic!

- CJ

August 12, 2008 at 2:22pm

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Thank you for this article. I have recently been pondering the problem of prudential judgment when both candidates favor killing innocent lives for the "health" and convenience of others. Now that the position of at least one candidate is clear, it makes my decision much easier. PS, Has anyone seriously investigated the origin and reasons behind Planned Parenthood's penchant for setting up shop in lower income, predominately black areas? I guess we reproduce too fast for some folks.

- Hugh

August 12, 2008 at 2:33pm

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+1...now that is a title you won't see at Nation or New Republic. pity as it describes his position on late term abortion perfectly.

- dpw

August 12, 2008 at 3:10pm

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Since when is being mad that abortion is allowed been being a zelaot, since when is protecting life or a fetus worthy of being a zealot. Funny though, I think you should work for the Huffington Post, they would love somebody like you. McCain believes in life, as do many Amricans and then some believe in choice, as you do. Cna we at least try to have grown up debates without name calling.

- G

August 12, 2008 at 3:12pm

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In December 1966, when John McCain requested his first combat assignment in Vietnam, Barack Obama turned 5 years old and was enjoying the freedoms a child should enjoy. As Obama turned 7, McCain had survived a burning jet fire on the USS Forrestal and had just flown his 23rd bombing mission over communist North Vietnam. In 1973, as Obama reached age 12, McCain was finally released from a prisoner-of-war camp in the Hanoi Hilton. At age 15, when Obama was still in high school, McCain became the commanding officer of a Naval Training Squadron in Florida. He turned a poorly managed military unit into a distinguished, combat-ready team. When Obama reached the legal age of 21 and was experimenting with pot and cocaine, McCain declined an admiral promotion and ran for and was elected to Congress. By 1987, Obama was a young man of 25 and McCain had assumed the office of senator from Arizona (after a successful four-year tour in the U.S. House of Representatives). At age 36, Obama looked on as Sen. McCain was named one of Time magazine's 25 most influential people in America. Whom do we choose as our next leader? Do we choose a man with proven military and political achievements, or a man with little experience other than a stint as a community leader and junior senator? Decisions, decisions!

- Alan Trout

August 12, 2008 at 3:14pm

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Thanks for your article. I thought Mr. McCain was soft on abortion and that was a reason my family wasn't excited about him - but it's great to know how he really thinks and feels about the abortion issue.

- jamal jk

August 12, 2008 at 3:17pm

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Obama supports partial birth abortion -- sucking the brain out of a viable fetus -- and destroying babies who manage to live through an abortion. That's another good reason to vote for John McCain. If you like the culture of death, move to Europe.

- Barbara

August 12, 2008 at 3:18pm

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Pro-life zealots rock!

- Melissa

August 12, 2008 at 4:05pm

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It's all good news for those who oppose the killing of babies.

- Blaise MacLean

August 12, 2008 at 4:09pm

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Now I WILL for sure vote for McCain!!!!! Go LIFE

- Darlene

August 12, 2008 at 4:16pm

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Making a choice for whom to vote isn't difficult for a Pro-Life Catholic such as I, it'll be John McCain. Moreover, I'm certain John's a full-blooded American and an American nationalist. Obama's neither one. It isn't racism to say Obama's not a full-blooded American, it'd be true if his father had been English, German or Irish rather than a Kenyan.

- Dave Livingston

August 12, 2008 at 4:28pm

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Thank you for taking a stance for life McCain!

- Carolynn

August 12, 2008 at 4:29pm

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It's very scary. I can't believe a person who doesn't believe in murdering unborn children has a chance to be president! What a freak!

- Ted

August 12, 2008 at 4:37pm

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Geez, I feel so bad for the writer of this article as well as other women, though thankfully becoming a minority, who feel not only their rights, but their very womanhood, or "control of their bodies" is tied to unrestricted right to an abortion. I'm a lawyer and mother of four, who's managed to do quite well without ever contemplating an abortion and in fact fighting against it for most of my 40 years. And I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I earned everything on my own. My older sister and I were the first in our extended family to attend college. I think pro-abort women sell their own gender short -- real short. Any woman who needs partial birth abortion or any abortion for that matter, to have a fruitful life just isn't the kind of woman that ought to be held up as a role model. She's to be supremely pitied.

- Connie

August 12, 2008 at 4:47pm

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O the crazy! It doth abound! It leapeth and frolic to the tune of the True Believer! "Baby killer, infanticide!" And on and on did they ride.

- James F. Elliott

August 12, 2008 at 4:53pm

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Based on all of these comments, it looks like the far-right wing had advance knowledge of your article and enlisted their cronies to do their usual dirty work. Obama '08!

- TNR reader

August 12, 2008 at 4:55pm

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Oh my, John McCain is zealously in favor of life...we can't allow that now! Who could possibly be more awful than someone who is for...life??!! If McCain gets elected we might not be able to murder babies anymore!!! Can you imagine anything worse??!!

- kill 'em all!!!

August 12, 2008 at 4:57pm

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I know that Sen. Sam Brownback opposes a woman's right to choose, based on his deep and sincere religious beliefs. With McCain, I'm not so certain. I don't think McCain has real convictions beyond having the same "moral certitude" that Bush had, which, in the end, amounts to nothing mre than political expediency.

- hypocrisy 'r us

August 12, 2008 at 5:08pm

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Technically, if The One has his way, Senator Obama's 14yr old could have an abortion without him knowing, then if the abortion's botched and the baby is born alive, he's good with them sucking the brains out of his grandchild, while the baby screams and finally dies, to be discarded as so much medical waste. (Facts- He supports abortion at any age, without parental notification, and voted against the infant born alive protection act, the only senator from both parties in the Illinois senate to do so.)

- hippie_chucker

August 12, 2008 at 5:13pm

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The real deception regarding the life issue is being carried out by Obama, who has never missed an opportunity to undermine the most basic legal protections for the most vulnerable and defenseless members of the human families. However, he recognizes that in order to attract most Catholic voters, he will have to soft-pedal and obfuscate his record of extremist anti-life activity. Voters would be well advised to look to at what NARAL and the National Right to Life Committee say about the candidates. As for my family and me, we will be voting for McCain.

- DC for McCain

August 12, 2008 at 5:19pm

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Interesting and disturbing article, in no small part due to the chatter and the shrill responses of equating pro-choice with 'murder.' I can paint pro-life folks with the same brush: warmongers, child-neglectors, child-abusers, zealots, bigots and martyrs. For the record, I was adopted. My mother could easily have chosen abortion in the days of shame for unwed mothers. I'm glad she did not, but I firmly believe in a woman's choice to bear a child through birth or not.

- Sideon

August 12, 2008 at 5:42pm

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The highest duty of government is to protect helpless and innocent individuals. The unborn are the very definition of helpless and innocent. Even infanticide fanatics such as Ms. Blustain must recognize that there comes a point during gestation at which human babies deserve the same right to live as their human mothers.

- Mike

August 12, 2008 at 5:49pm

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Nothing wrong with being a zealot when it comes to protecting innocent life.

- Will G.

August 12, 2008 at 5:54pm

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toritto,

Your post sickens me. First let me say that she should not have had to endure things like death threats, harrassment to her kids, or loss of job. Strong protest, however, is perfectly legitimate.

But let me ask a few simple questions - If a child is born with no legs and one arm, is it not worthy of love? Why not just kill him/her 5 minutes after birth if the defect wasn't know beforehand? And where does this sort of thing end? Can you kill the child because he has webbed feet or maybe just because she doesn't have blue eyes?

- jz

August 12, 2008 at 6:06pm

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McCain is certainly straight talk on embryonic stem cell research - otherwise known as abortion for medical experimentation purposes. Regardless of what stage of development,or for what noble purpose, the taking of a human innocent life is always intrinsically wrong - a grave evil. For this reason, he'll not have my vote.

- Don L

August 12, 2008 at 6:10pm

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Nothing like an abortion debate to bring out the crazies.

- Sameoldarguments

August 12, 2008 at 6:21pm

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How did such a cohort of wackos end up commenting on this topic? As for McSame's record- he's been quite conservative (and with a bad temper) forever but he's somehow been able to convince people he was something else-- a freethinker, a maverick. Bull nuggets. With ultimate power for a reward, anger, little man syndrome, and an aging super-ego are liabilities and his real colors are showing.

- Dr. d

August 12, 2008 at 8:10pm

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I do not believe in abortion. However, some years ago my sister and a cousin of mine were both raped by the same man. My sister had her baby, and my cousin did not. The differnce was my sister was 19 and my cousin was only 15. I believe they both did what was best for them. My sister was healthy an could carry a baby. My cousin was not, underdeveloped uterus and developement! Chance she as well as he baby could have died. that's when I realized how important it is to have a choice. Both have children an are happily married now, with children. Were lucky to have a choice, and it's our body, Not john mccains! It's the womens right to choose, and untill they can put every rapist behind bars for life, we need that choice!

- alberta treadway

August 12, 2008 at 8:29pm

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McCains Pro-Life stance is one of my reasons I'll vote for him. Obama's enthusiastic support for abortion, especially 'Partial Birth Abortion', is one of many reasons to vote against him. What kind of a psycopathic personality could dream up something so horrible to do to a human being? I do support government funding of Birth Control, much better to prevent than to terminate.

- Brian

August 12, 2008 at 8:50pm

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It never ceases to amaze me, although I must acknowledge it, that when someone (like McCain) says he "believes in the sanctity of human life" or he "wants to protect the rights of the unborn", they have the kind of visceral reaction that I have when someone says they want to support the right to "tear an infant apart piece by piece" or "leave a live fetus on the table to die after a failed abortion". We live in a bizarre, broken world where loving human life makes someone a pariah. I'll be pulling the lever for John McCain this fall, and hoping one day we all come to our senses about the sanctity of human life.

- Captain America

August 12, 2008 at 8:57pm

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I backed Clinton in the primaries. I am comitted to Obama as of now, mainly due to McCain's quarter-century long record of misogyny. If McCain is president, he will overturn Roe and that will make abortions of any kind illegal in ALL 50 states, regardless of how conservative or liberal they are. Under Obama, we will have a chance to do something that we should have done 88 years ago: ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Obama supports the ERA, McCain opposes it.

- Jovan Byars

August 12, 2008 at 9:15pm

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John McCain plans to bomb a lot of kids that are muslim, that is PRO LIFE!

- kimberly

August 12, 2008 at 9:34pm

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Illegalizing abortion does not prevent abortions. Being pro-choice is not supporting infanticide. As a Christian who strongly values life, I believe elective abortion without medical reason is murder. On the other hand, I could not support legislation that would cause thousands of women to die for their sins. Jesus has already done that for them (and me, but apparently many of you don't need grace, because you are already perfect).

- Nathan Wagstaff

August 12, 2008 at 9:53pm

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Patrick Moynihan has watched partial-birth abortions?

- Nathan Wagstaff

August 12, 2008 at 9:56pm

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There is no question that McCain wants to overturn Roe v Wade -- his position is clearly stated on his campaign website. I don't understand how anyone could have any doubts. Seems like a lot of denial to me.

- Obamer

August 12, 2008 at 10:17pm

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Ridiculously inept article. John McCain's views on the abortion issue will have zero impact on this question. Perhaps, as President, he might be in a position to nominate Justices to the Supreme Court, but as many Presidents have seen, your nominees dont always do as expected, just ask Bush 41. The idea that McCain becoming president will suddenly usher the end of abortion in the US is just silly. I personally find abortion abhorent. I would recommend to my teenage daughter that should she become pg as a minor, that she get one. I also want her to vote when that time comes on a variety of issues and not be a one trick pony. The idea of Obama and his "cant we all just sit and talk" approach to foreign policy scares the hell out of me. Neville Chamberlain also believed in the "talk it out" system. The left wingers who care only about abortion are idiots. The right wingers who care only about abortion are idiots. There is so much more to this election than abortion. Every damn election all of ya'll rant and rave about it and the whole "if he gets elected the world will end!" drama is just disgusting. Please actually consider more than just one topic! For America!

- michael

August 12, 2008 at 11:18pm

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Sweet Fancy Moses! McCain is PRO-LIFE! Of course this is not news to the sane among us but is reason number 1,459 to VOTE RED IN NOV. The curtain is slowly being pulled back on you sick, death-worshippers. The culture-of-death will be dealt a resounding blow in just a few short months people.

- raleigh dad

August 12, 2008 at 11:34pm

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The Preamble of the Constitution guarantees "life", liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And it is shocking to you that the President of the United States, who swears to uphold the Constitution, would do anything different?

- Doug Brockbank

August 13, 2008 at 12:26am

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That settles it for me and my family....we'll support McCain now.

- mark

August 13, 2008 at 12:31am

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Why does no one talk about how John McCain had an affair with his former wife after she had a car accident. I understand this happened after he came back from being a prisoner of war for five years but republicans what to talk about moral values but what does this past episode say about John McCain's moral values.

- JohnMcCainismyhero

August 13, 2008 at 1:25am

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Come on. Nobody who's been paying attention for more than five minutes believes that McCain is a "straight talker". By the same token, the longer the campaign goes on we are being made more and more aware that Obama isn't either. The unifying premises of both campaigns have been clearly demonstrated to be false. McCain is no straight talker, Obama doesn't shy away from "old politics" at all. So given that we know the campaigns are lies (like most other political campaigns in history) we have to ignore the rhetoric and judge by what we know about each candidate. Does anyone believe that either candidate is as far to the right as they are pretending to be? Does anyone believe that McCain is make an effort to weaken pro-choice rights given his fairly deep-seated need to curry favor in the press ("my friend")? Does anyone believe that the increased majorities in congress or senate would let him get away with it? Does anyone know how deep Obama's commitment is to this issue other than to just instinctively embrace an element of liberal orthodoxy as a political maneuver? What would it take to get him to bargain away some of that commitment? (He's already made some mildly disturbing comments.) In my opinion, two very unappealing candidates. McCain a tragic figure for having to embrace the political positions of his political nemesis GWB, and Obama who just seems to be enraptured by the sound of his own voice.

- Paul

August 13, 2008 at 2:04am

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Well said, Texan99. Pro abortionists cannot face the reality of life in the womb. The moment they admit the fetus is a living human being, they have lost the battle. They cannot, therefore, admit that prolifers act out of concern for protecting those helpless human beings. Thus they concoct the myth that the prolife movement is really an effort to control women or limit their freedom. It doesn't faze them that more women than men are opposed to abortion on demand!

- Harry

August 13, 2008 at 4:32am

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As an Arizonan I have written to Senator McCain several times in support of women's issues around the world, specifically those which support funding for contraception in third world countries. He is clearly pro-life as his responses to me indicated. There are so many issues he is rigid about and this is one of them despite the smoke and mirrors. In fact, his treatment of women is appalling as evidenced by his latest offering of his wife to a beauty contest involving nudity and bananas. McCain can be crude and very disrespectful to women. Joking about wife beating and rape are just not something a dignified leader should do in a culture where these issues are severe for women. McCain is, IMO, extremely misogynistic.

-

August 13, 2008 at 4:54am

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Sorry, McCain is not pro-life. He is pro-war, and anti-abortion.

- Four More Years

August 13, 2008 at 6:03am

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I notice that the anti choice zealots are in full force on these responses. That is why we must fight all that much harder to show McSame's view on choice. We must take out more ads, and do all that we can. We must bring it up at the convention. Those who are so anti choice, I guess when your teen becomes pregnant and Roe is gone and she decides to have a back alley abortion and dies, I guess that you will think that she deserves it. You might want to make that no choice choice for your offspring, however, I would want my teen to have a safe and legal abortion where the end result is that she lives. You don't think that could happen to you or your daughter, but it can. What will you say or do then??

- Jan

August 13, 2008 at 6:57am

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Amy - An intruvie question that should never have been asked?" What are you talking about? Of course it should be asked! When politicians vote to take away a woman's right to choose, they are figuratively putting themselves in MY doctor's office between myself and the person who will provide the care I need. You are upset at such a personal question? No kidding! NO ONE should have to discuss their personal health - and yet, anti-choice zealots want to force woman, shame women into bad decisions.

- Ann

August 13, 2008 at 11:39am

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What I don't understand is why do liberals stop at abortion when it comes to having aggressive government involvement in our lives? When the Democrats run everything from the dog catcher to the presidency, they will make sure there is as much government involvement in our lives as possible. So, can someone answer me - preferably a government-is-the-solution-to-all-our-problems liberal - why does their penchant for government involvement stop at abortion?

- Patrick Dempsey - MN

August 13, 2008 at 1:25pm

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Why are you not posting any more comments to this article? I posted one last night and it has not appeared yet. There was no foul language or anything vulgar. Or wait, you probably consider not killing babies vulgar so you decided to let that one slide into the dustbin. I bet this your editors are afraid you are getting a few too many pro-life voices in your little death-cult corner of the web. Cowards, the whole lot of you. Sick, disgusting, no-moral-ground-to-stand-on cowards.

- Eric

August 13, 2008 at 2:47pm

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It appears that McCain is cleverly feighing ignorance when posed a question whose truthful answer will reveal that his positions on abortion and birth control are at odds with 2/3 of the American electorate. He sidesteps the issue, avoids making any statement to anger anyone and leaves the impression that the subject is not very important to him. Those posters applauding McCain's stance on these issues show demand that McCain honestly express the positions that he has spent his entire political career supporting.

- Fran

August 13, 2008 at 2:55pm

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"would TNR consider branding a pro-choice lawmaker a "pro-choice zealot?"" No. There are pro-life zealots, and I'm sure there are a couple of crazy pro-abortion zealots, but "zealotry" is the wrong word for people who strongly believe that the choice to abort or not is a personal one. Our media loves to treat all issues as equal yet opposite sides, but the fact is that we are talking about fundamentally different worldviews. No one bombs the CWA offices because they are a "pro-choice zealot".

- Bobby

August 13, 2008 at 4:59pm

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"If McCain is a "zealot", what does that make Obama with pro-abortion?" Again, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the pro-choice view. Zealotry is characterized by an overwhelming desire to impose YOUR view on others. Being pro-choice is about recognizing abortion as a PERSONAL decision. If you run around screaming that chocolate ice cream is the greatest, you are an ice cream zealot. If you spend your time telling others that chocolate or vanilla are options and they should think for themselves, you are not.

- Bobby

August 13, 2008 at 5:01pm

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Countries that have outlawed abortion have more (illegal) abortions per capita than the US, so the anti-choice position cannot really be characterized as pro-life. If one seeks to reduce abortions, it is best to support proven routes: education and contraception. If you don't support contraception, you are not so much anti-choice as anti-sex and should probably keep that to yourself instead of vomiting it on the electorate.

- Bobby

August 13, 2008 at 5:04pm

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"Biology 101 shows human life starting at conception." There is no scientific consensus on the "beginning of human life" in a context useful to moral discussion. At conception, the zygote has a 4 in 5 chance of failing to implant and, well, getting washed out. Are we to claim that 80% of all human lives are aborted? Never mind that there is nothing differentiating a recently-conceived zygote to any other cell in my body other than location and the right signals directing it to grow and differentiate. There is a reason we have Biology classes higher than 101, although I'm not surprised you never found that out.

- Bobby

August 13, 2008 at 5:12pm

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You people are so weak and cowardly. Always running in packs, did someone post a link to this article on one of your self-radicalizing forums? Or was it just another semi-literate, churlish chain letter? Insults aside, please think of the wider world we live in and the realities of it. The choice of abortion is a legal right in every advanced nation. Where you to get your wildest wish of a ban on abortion, what exactly do you think you will accomplish? Anyone with any sense and a modicum of money would simply goto Canada or Mexico. The middle class would fly to the UK or continental Europe. Abortions are not going away, ever. Heres something for you: Why don't you concern yourselfs with your own bodies? Why must you make decisions about other peoples' lives? Because you know what? Your little clans of ignorance can't stand up to progress. How many of your daughters have had abortions behind your backs? The lack of control of your own progeny is what drives you people to these idiotic actions. It must make you so angry that you can't control your own daughters actions, but the way around that, is to just raise better children, not limit their actions and rights through government control. You talk about the rights of unborn children. Well two can play at that game. I move that the children of illogical, fanatical nutjobs be removed from that environment. Its for their own good.

- Mr. Common Sense

August 14, 2008 at 8:10am

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You people are so weak and cowardly. Always running in packs, did someone post a link to this article on one of your self-radicalizing forums? Or was it just another semi-literate, churlish chain letter? Insults aside, please think of the wider world we live in and the realities of it. The choice of abortion is a legal right in every advanced nation. Where you to get your wildest wish of a ban on abortion, what exactly do you think you will accomplish? Anyone with any sense and a modicum of money would simply goto Canada or Mexico. The middle class would fly to the UK or continental Europe. Abortions are not going away, ever. Heres something for you: Why don't you concern yourselfs with your own bodies? Why must you make decisions about other peoples' lives? Because you know what? Your little clans of ignorance can't stand up to progress. How many of your daughters have had abortions behind your backs? The lack of control of your own progeny is what drives you people to these idiotic actions. It must make you so angry that you can't control your own daughters actions, but the way around that, is to just raise better children, not limit their actions and rights through government control. You talk about the rights of unborn children. Well two can play at that game. I move that the children of illogical, fanatical nutjobs be removed from that environment. Its for their own good.

- Mr. Common Sense

August 14, 2008 at 8:12am

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JZ: So easy for you to say. My wife and I had a profoundly retarted son in 1977. He lived with us at home until he was ten. He never spoke or walked. He never sat up. I believe he was deaf and blind. He never looked at me. He wore a diaper until the day he died. My wife and I fed him, dressed him and gave him total care for ten years. One morning he up and died. She is gone now too. If there is a heaven (and I am not a believer) then he is running and playing in sunshine and fresh air. My wife is sitting under a tree listening to him call out "Mommy!! Look at me!! We raised two other girls both successful and happy. I want them to have a choice.

- toritto

August 14, 2008 at 12:34pm

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1. Being "pro-choice/abortion" is not necessarily "pro-Roe" (see the late John Hart Ely). It is entirely possible to recognize Roe v. Wade for the unconstitutional monstrosity that it is and hold that allowing abortion is good public policy. Only pro-abortion zealots hold otherwise. 2. It is likewise entirely plausible to be pro-"choice"/abortion and disfavor public funding to facilitate abortion, and/or the use of public funds to engage in advocacy/lobbying. It is a question of forced speech. 3. I will probably vote for McCain, if for no other reason that the fact that the far Left moonbat contingent has managed to offer as an alternative one of their own. But calling John McCain a "zealot" about anything strikes me as nothing more than the product of a moonbat's fevered imagination.

- James Young

August 14, 2008 at 12:45pm

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i was really, really trying to stay out of this. i really was. but for heaven's sake, you pro-lifers really need to get it into your heads that partial birth abortion is a misnomer! later term abortion constitutes less than 5% of all abortions, and due to the inherent danger and expense of aborting a nearly full term pregnancy, it's pretty much the exclusive domain of women who actually want their babies but for whatever reason can't deliver them properly (either the mother's life is in danger, or the fetus is deformed/sick/already dead). no one just waits til 34 weeks and goes "oh hey, i just changed my mind. i don't think i want this thing after all." as for obama and the "infanticide," the only reason he voted against in the measure was that it was a needless, redundant bill. it's ALREADY illegal to let a baby born alive die, even if it was supposed to have been an abortion. now, i get the reasoning behind most pro-life stances (the ones dealing with true abortion. all this contraception/abstinence stuff on the other hand... well, don't get me started). i don't agree AT ALL, but i understand it. but when you guys go getting all your facts messed up and start spouting reguritated lies and twisted truths, well, i just have to speak up. you're entitled to your opinion, i just don't think anyone should get away with basing an opinion on untruths and made up facts. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT. do some research. you might learn something.

- tracker

August 15, 2008 at 11:53am

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Thanks for this article. I'm willing to bet that 99% of the pro-lifers who commented would have voted for McCain anyhow. I hope that it does help inform some of the pro-choice voters who are truly undecided, and show them how out-of-step McCain is with their views, and how inflexible McCain's position on choice really is.

- Kirsten

August 15, 2008 at 12:37pm

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"the far Left moonbat contingent" If this is your honest characterization of the Demoratic party, your worldview is hopelessly skewed and you cannot possibly pretend to vote based on an even evaluation of political positions. Step outside the rhetoric for one minute, if you think you can.

- Bobby

August 15, 2008 at 9:39pm

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I agree with Itzik (#26) - we live in a global community and a candidate's foreign policy would be much more important than his stance on abortion. I am very much pro-life but I would not base my vote only on that issue. Even if McCain was completely pro-choice, I would still vote for him because I think he's the best man for the job. Many of the issues raised in campaigns are almost moot since once a candidate would get into office, his stance could easily change for the better (yes, I know, also for the worse). In my opinion it's best to look at a candidate's general experience and track-record in his leadership and his stance on the major issues that will affect the nation in the global picture. Of course we won't set aside home issues such as health care and taxes, etc. If he is a wise man, he will choose a VP that is strong in the areas where he is weak.

- Talia

August 16, 2008 at 4:42am

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I just think (especially after reading this) McCain will believe in whatever position he thinks will get him elected.

- Shan

August 16, 2008 at 9:27am

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Can we focus on the actual facts of abortion: 1. Life begins at conception. Anyone who denies this or doesn't understand it is not qualified to be in charge of the leader of the free world. 2. Abortion ends a life 3. Abortion is almost always, despite rhetoric from the left, for convenience. 4. Stress or not realizing one's dreams (shich probably won't happen anyway) do not qualify as medical reasons. 5. Anti-life politicians present their 'personally opposed' positions because they know it is wrong, but don't want to lose the funding from the abortion industry. 6. The abortion industry, through planned parenthood, is the manifestation of Margaret Sanger & Co.s desire to eliminate as many blacks, hispanics, jews and catholics as possible. Sadly, they are as complicit as wasps in this effort.

- DaveM

August 21, 2008 at 12:04pm

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Please show some scientific, peer-reviewed evidence that conception begins at life. Oops there isn't any!

- Facts please, people

August 22, 2008 at 12:06pm

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As a long-time pro-lifer, I have to smile at the request for "scientific, peer-reviewed evidence" that life begins at conception, as if that would somehow validate what is in plain sight. Actually, one can legitimately say that life does not "begin" at conception; rather it is transmitted. A newly conceived child comes from living cells--there's no spontaneous generation from dead matter. The argument, of course, is about when we, as a civil society, recognize the humanity of the living child. The answer to that is from the moment the child is human, which is at conception. Not implantation, not at some arbitrary timeline of weeks or months during pregnancy, not birth or some time beyond that. Human life should be respected and protected for the entire span of life, from conception to natural death.

- Ben

August 22, 2008 at 11:49pm

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It's a good thing your mother recognized when your life began.... or is it?

- Helen

August 23, 2008 at 9:10am

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I'll take moral certitude over infanticide anyday

- Helen

August 23, 2008 at 9:14am

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the care you will need ....or... inconvenience you will incur... clarify please.

- Helen

August 23, 2008 at 9:18am

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Anyone who's ever tried (unsuccessfully) to get pregnant knows there is a world of difference between a barren womb and one that carries an implanted, fertilized egg, even one that's only minutes old. That said, everyone also knows there's a huge difference between a minutes-old conception and and 3-month fetus, as there is between a 3-month fetus and a viable fetus, or between that and a breathing baby outside the womb. Aborting a fetus at any stage is not a morally meaningful activity like blowing your nose, and if you don't know that, you're in deep denial. An early abortion is also absolutely nothing like destroying a 34-week-old fetus that's completely capable of living outside the mother's body. Even if you support very early abortions, don't you have to stop and take stock before you support the destruction of a viable fetus? How is that not a human being? I'm unsure enough about the "human rights" of an eight-cell blastocyst that I would not want to interfere legally in another woman's decision to end a pregnancy at that stage. I'm not exactly sure when I become willing to intervene, but I do know that the moment certainly has arrived by the time the fetus is viable. At that point, it's not a matter of privacy or choice. I'm sorry that the word "infanticide" appears provocative, but with a viable fetus, that's what we're talking about.

- Texan99

August 24, 2008 at 5:41pm

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Actually, many people assume McCain is more moderate on the issue than he is. They would be shocked to know that he is accepting the extremist Republican platform that abortions should be illegal even in cases of rape, incest, or to save a woman's life.

- Linda

August 24, 2008 at 8:44pm

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. . . Palin is much worse than you imagine ** Welcome to “The Handmaid's Tale”, America ** McCain is a dupe. Now he’s just along for a ride into the abyss of fundamentalist political ideology, dominionism. Palin comes "wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." She is exactly the gender traitor dominionists need to create the xian Iran of their dreams, under xian imams, xian thugs, and their corporate overlords. Have you ever read or ever viewed The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood? A one sentence synopsis: “In a dystopicly polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.” IMDb.com/title/tt0099731 Atwood depicts a society in which women have been stripped of all rights in a fragment of a failed America, known as Gilead, a country controlled by christian fundamentalist terrorists. Obama PACs should buy The Handmaid's Tale, novel and DVD, by the box load and hand copies to every media person they know. Get TV outlets to broadcast it. If necessary buy time to show The Handmaid’s Tale in critical markets. Palin emerges as a puritanical atavism directly from Atwood’s dystopia. She belongs to a possible future we must avert.

- bipolar2

September 10, 2008 at 12:59pm

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