Ah, I can already feel the love my fellow conservatives will bestow upon me for quoting the fair Ms. Mair twice in two days.? The love is so palpable that it’s suffocating.
But I must do what I must do.? So if we could all keep the GOP infighting to a bare minimum for a few moments, I will get on with my post and then head for the nearest bunker.
Over at GOPProgress, Liz reports sentiments of discontent with presidential hopeful Mitt Romney from today’s March for Life here in our nation’s capital.? Seemingly distributed throughout the crowd were extremely unflattering fliers?reminding the pro-life stalwarts on the ground of Romney’s not-so-pro-life past.? Included in these materials was the claim that Romney forced Catholic hospitals to distribute RU-486?as late as 2005.? Sayeth Liz:
“The source of that story appears to be the AP, via the Massachusetts newspaper South Coast Today which wrote this on December 9, 2005:
BOSTON — Facing opposition from women, the Democratic Party and even his own running mate, Gov. Mitt Romney abandoned plans yesterday to exempt religious and other private hospitals from a new law requiring them to dispense emergency contraception to rape victims…
“I think, in my personal view, it’s the right thing for hospitals to provide information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape,” he added.
I must say, this is something that even pro-choice (but Catholic) me has a problem with. ?A Catholic hospital, which opposes abortion in all cases except where the life of the mother is in jeopardy as a matter of moral principle, should not be compelled by the state to do something that runs contrary to its own moral code.
I would also note that this occurred very, very recently.
Romney once (and not so long ago) supported public funding of abortions, and just over a year ago, he was still supporting requiring religious hospitals to dispense medication which they believe forces an abortion, which they view as murder? ?Those are both positions which even I, who is rather more liberal on the abortion question than at least half of the GOP, oppose. ?If Romney’s looking too liberal for me on this issue, I dread to think how he’s looking right about now to your average social conservative…”
Since I’m not your average social conservative, I wouldn’t know.? But considering that pretty much all of my R4’08 colleagues and most of our readership appear to be of the “so-con” persuasion, I encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comments section.
I’ll be in my bunker.
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I’m not impressed with anyone who calls themselves “pro-choice” getting all huffy about who is socially conservative enough. I’m pretty sick of Liz Mair’s barbs, as I believe is the world consensus, but does anyone have any more information on this issue? It doesn’t look good at first glance, but I almost assume there is something behind Mair’s vendetta she’d rather we not know. Am I wrong?
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Now DaveG, come on out. I’ll hold my fire. Seriously, though, I honestly don’t know who Liz Mair is, so maybe you can point me to a place where I can find out. I think I heard this accusation once before, don’t know how true it is. I do remember something about the Catholic Church and adoptions in Mass recently, where the liberal state legislature or maybe one of their esteemed judges (he says sarcastically) passed a law requiring the church to open its adoption process to non-Catholics. I thought Romney came down hard against that law. If so, this new accusation would surprise me, especially so close to the 2008 campaign. By 2005 Romney was already gearing up for the presidential campaign.
Personally, I’m currently on the fence about this issue (abortions/morning after drugs on demand for rape victims by church-affiliated hospitals). While I think it totally infringes on the religious rights of the hospital, I also feel for the rape victim who may have arrived at the Catholic hopsital in a frame of mind not conducive to shopping around for a pro-choice facility. My admitedly limited medical knowledge tells me that these drugs need to be administered immediately, so turning the rape victim out on the streets to find the correct hopsital isn’t, in my mind, the compassionate option. However, the religious rights thing still weighs on me. Perhaps this is the dilemma Romney finds himself in as well. Regardless, he needs to adress these religious/conservative issues very soon or he risks rejection a lot sooner than some had thought.
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:35 pm
(peeking out of bunker)…Hi jake…
Liz is a political consultant here in Washington. I can’t recall which pols she’s worked for, or perhaps I never knew. She runs the site GOPProgress, which I linked to in the post, and she is a self-described moderate Republican (hope I’m not misrepresenting her persuasion).
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:42 pm
I think that Liz has made it pretty clear by her writing that keeping Roe v Wade the law of the land is one of the driving focuses of her life.
I have received many email accounts of the march today which I have held off on running with because I have no way of verifiying their accuracy.
By now we have all probably heard that Brownback supporters were there by the truckloads; and Dave has brought up the fairly aggressive anti-Mitt contingent that was there (once again, this is from second hand accounts… But many of the big name sites have reported this).
Interesting to note however, is that despite the problems that many in the So-Con community supposedly have with Sen. McCain and Rudy Giuliani, there have been no accounts yet of any anti-McCain or anti-Rudy activities.
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:47 pm
She’s had this up on her “progressive” site and been emailing it around all day. But as far as I can see, all the quotes regarding RU-486 were from 1994. There were a couple Roe v Wade quotes from 2002. There were no quotes in 2005 on Romney supporting RU-486. It seems to me that Romney was voicing support for Plan B for rape victims. Plan B is maximally effective 12 hours after sex, and useless very shortly after that. RU-486 can be used as an abortion pill for up to 49 days.
Like MellowFellow, I generally don’t take marching orders from pro-abortionists, especially when a clear candidate preference and lack of truthfullness guides their rhetoric.
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Okay, some points of fact.
(1) It is not RU-486 that is being talked about here. Liz Mair is wrong when she states that it is. The medication is Plan B. Plan B is only useful for about 12 hours after, but is pretty much useless after the fact. It is very effective in preventing conception, but does not induce spontaneous abortions. RU-486 is effective for weeks afterwards.
(2) If the law makes no exceptions for any hospital, and makes no provision for any exception, then there is little that the Governor can do except grandstand. If he consulted with his lawyers, and they told him he could do nothing, then what else could he do?
(3) The Mormon church allows for abortions in the case of rape, incest, and the life of the mother; but asks that the woman pray and consult with her church leaders first. It is not a step to be taken lightly.
(4) Romney tells of his conversion to solidly pro-life as happening sometime in the 2005-2006 time frame. It was during a discussion about how harvesting stem cells from days-old embryos is not a “moral matter” that he was horrified at treating the unborn so cavalierly.
So it is easy to see how he might think early in 2005 that a morning-after pill in the case of rape is justified, but afterward draw the line elsewhere.
So once again, Romney has been proven to have evolved his stance on abortion. Flipped, yes. Flopped, no.
January 22nd, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Kavon,
despite the problems that many in the So-Con community supposedly have with Sen. McCain and Rudy Giuliani, there have been no accounts yet of any anti-McCain or anti-Rudy activities.
No there hasn’t, because people understand that McCain is pro-life and Rudy is pro-choice but their positions have been consistent over the years. Romney’s has just recently changed and people are rightly calling him on it.
Says Erik of Redstate:
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Liz Mair is a McCain backer. Enough Said.
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:07 am
Erick details Liz Mair’s dishonesty in this post on RedState.
Liz Mair went from an unknown to an unknown deceiver in two days. Pretty impressive. I guess it would be responsible to not link to or quote her from here on out.
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:23 am
Looks like team Romney is making a theme of same-day responses:
http://www.mittromney.com/News/Press-Releases/Myth_Fact_ProLife_Record
Nice to see them on top of their game.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Romney tells of his conversion to solidly pro-life as happening sometime in the 2005-2006 time frame. It was during a discussion about how harvesting stem cells from days-old embryos is not a “moral matter” that he was horrified at treating the unborn so cavalierly.
So it is easy to see how he might think early in 2005 that a morning-after pill in the case of rape is justified, but afterward draw the line elsewhere.
Two things you failed to mention about Flip Flop in the above statements.
When stem cells are “extra” and hanging around in laboratories, Mitt is PRO STEM CELL USE. That’s the deception of it all. Stem cells are harvested because women just so happen to have extra unborn children hanging around in laboratories just sitting frozen in time. Therefore, Mitt is for stem cell use.
– Mitt is forcing Catholic hospitals to use pills that cause abortion – any way you spin it, in 2005. As Marie Sturgis of Mass Citizens for Life said in 2005 of Romney – they consider him a proabort because he has never shown his face to let them know he had this miraculous converstion.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:04 pm
“Nice to see them on top of their game.”
If you think the Romney game in response to the flier had any effect in prolife networks – please tell us what it’s like to live in the cartoon world.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:32 pm
When stem cells are “extra” and hanging around in laboratories, Mitt is PRO STEM CELL USE. That’s the deception of it all. Stem cells are harvested because women just so happen to have extra unborn children hanging around in laboratories just sitting frozen in time. Therefore, Mitt is for stem cell use.
When people are dead or dying, we allow them to donate their organs. When they are incompetent to declare this themselves, others can declare it for them. How is it different when the people are much younger and in the embryonic stage? There is absolutely nothing in the view in question that is inconsistent with the pro-life view of embryonic personhood and moral status, because we do the same thing with older people who have moral status. He’s opposed to is killing them in order to get their stem cells, but he’s ok with the equivalent of organ donation for ones that are going to die anyway, even if it’s wrong to kill them.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Well, Jeremy, We’ve been sitting around the computer trying to figure out what you are saying and, we are stumped.
The Frankensteins are making extry embryos from unsuspecting women just so they’ll be extry. You have to kill them to get their stem cells. It’s the only way it happens. If he doesn’t object to it – he is pro stem cell exploitation and killing.
January 25th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Well, it seems that this post has caused quite the flurry.
I would like to make two things clear.
First, I am not pro-Roe, though I am pro-choice (the distinction being that I think abortion is a states’ rights matter, and I don’t think that if, e.g., Alabama wants to restrict abortion to cases where the mother’s life is in jeopardy, or rape or incest, that should be banned via federal judicial dictat; likewise, I don’t think my home state of Washington’s abortion laws are a matter of federal jurisdiction, and I do support abortion being legal for the first twelve weeks only, except where the mother’s life is in jeopardy, there).
Second, as is clear to anyone who regularly visits my site (all 2,000 of them), my position has been for some time now that I am favorable to both McCain and Giuliani, and am not in the McCain or Giuliani camps. I have also stated that I would like to see Gingrich run. To the extent that any of that changes, I’ll say so, and then I will consider it fair game to dismiss me as a [McCain]/[Giuliani] shill.
Of course, I am not a Romney supporter (at all) and therefore, for some, that will make any comments I make about him, or any reporting of things like the distribution of anti-Romney leaflets (which I note seem to have been prepared by Brownback-supporting students, and with which I have nothing at all to do, apart from reporting their existence), unworthy of being treated with any credibility.