The pro-choice Republican organization Republicans for Choice has endorsed Sen. John McCain for President, saying that he was the group's "second choice" to Rudy Giuliani.

Chairman of the group Ann Stone told CyberCast News, "(McCain) is (pro-life), but it's not at the top of his agenda, not like Huckabee or the born-again Romney…He's shown his willingness to reach across the party, and we look forward to those discussions."

Though Republican Majority for Choice, a more prominent pro-choice Republican organization, has not endorsed McCain — as RMC co-chair Jennifer Stockman said, "We only endorse pro-choice Republicans" — Kellie Ferguson, president of the group, indicated that she trusted McCain to be more willing to work with pro-choice advocates than the other Republican presidential candidates. Ferguson stated: "For genuine candidates and genuine elected officials who disagree with us on [Roe], there are so many issue that we do agree on within the reproductive rights world – we should be focusing on sex education, we should be focusing on abstinence plus, we should be focusing on emergency contraception for rape victims…For someone like John McCain, we disagree on the issue, definitely, we as a Republican organization support a woman’s right to choose would not be endorsing him, but would he be willing to open the door to discuss how to lessen the incidence of abortion? I think he would" (emphasis mine).

Would he, really? Despite being a vocal opponent of legal abortion, McCain has never cosponsored or supported legislation that would lessen the need for abortion, like a bill expanding access to contraception. As NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan wrote on Bush v. Choice this morning, John McCain is not the "moderate maverick" the media makes him out to be. All the way back to 1987, McCain has never received higher than a 10 percent approval rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America.

"Most Americans don’t know that John McCain is extremely anti-choice," Keenan wrote in a letter to supporters this morning. Indeed, McCain has bucked the party line on touchy issues like immigration and campaign finance reform. But on choice, he has been consistent — consistently opposed.  A spokesperson for NARAL Pro-Choice America added, "We clearly categorize John McCain as anti-choice based on his 25 years of voting against women's health and privacy. McCain has gone even further than Bush in calling for the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Describing McCain as anything but anti-choice is quite a stretch."

Pro-choice Republican groups may be admired for their willingness to work on prevention with any candidate (though it's not as if non-partisan and Democratic pro-choice groups aren't), but in believing John McCain will work on proven measures to reduce the abortion rate, Republicans for Choice is naive.