It wouldn't exactly have been a pro-choice victory if Congresswoman Heather Wilson had won the GOP primary for New Mexico's open Senate seat. In 2006, Wilson told hometown paper the Albuquerque Tribune, "I believe abortion is morally wrong almost all of the time." She supports the Hyde Amendment, which prevents low-income women from using Medicare or Medicaid coverage to pay for abortions. And Wilson is in favor of the Global Gag Rule, which prevents U.S. foreign aid from funding comprehensive family planning efforts abroad.
Nevertheless, unlike her opponent, Rep. Steven Pearce, Wilson opposed a Constitutional amendment banning abortion and supports a woman's right to choose in cases of rape, incest, or when her own life is at risk. Last year Wilson stood up to President George W. Bush's ban on federally funded stem cell research, while Pearce kept in lock step with the president, opposing the life-saving research.
On June 3, Wilson lost to Pearce by 3,000
votes after socially conservative interest groups attacked her stances on reproductive health issues. Once again, the
Republican base cannibalized one of its own moderates. And Wilson isn't
an isolated case. WISH List, a group that supports pro-choice Republican
women running for office, has only one non-incumbent on its federal-level
endorsement list for November: Lynn Jenkins, the current Kansas state
treasurer. Jenkins is running in a GOP Congressional primary against
the highly favored Jim Ryun, a hard-line anti-choicer who served five
terms in the House before being booted out of office by pro-choice Republican-turned-Democrat
Nancy Boyda in 2006. Among Boyda's reasons for leaving the GOP? Its
increasingly hard right stance on social issues.
Compare the uphill battle facing pro-choice Republicans to the recent mini-surge of mixed-choice and anti-choice Democrats. Democrats for Life even has its own signature legislation, the 95-10 Initiative. No equivalent, comprehensive reproductive health bill has been drafted by the dwindling group of Congressional pro-choice Republicans. The organization Republican Majority for Choice won't even publish a list of the politicians it supports online -- after all, that would make it easier for better funded, anti-choice forces to target its few allies.
That's not to say there is
no safe haven for mixed-choice Republicans. New England continues to
be receptive to such folks; Maine's Sen. Susan Collins is favored
for reelection, and the GOP candidate in the state's fist Congressional
district is Charles Summers, an Iraq war veteran who describes himself
as pro-choice and has already defeated an anti-choice primary opponent.
Nationwide though, the GOP continues to hitch its wagon to divisive, religiously-motivated, anti-choice politics. In order to clinch his party's presidential nomination, John McCain embraced the fundamentalist evangelical and Catholic leaders he once rejected, and changed his position on Roe v. Wade; McCain now says the landmark pro-choice decision should be overturned, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
If McCain can't bring the
Christian right base out this November-and there's every indication
those voters won't show up at the polls in nearly the same numbers
as they did for Bush in 2000 and 2004-McCain's bid will hinge on
his appeal to moderates. That will hurt the GOP, not just because poll
after poll shows Republican policies on the economy and the war are
out of line with the preferences of the American people, but also because
middle America is generally pro-choice. A new poll from NARAL Pro-Choice
America found that when swing voter women learn about McCain's anti-choice
platform, 13 percent of them switch their preference to Barack Obama.
As NARAL political director Elizabeth Shipp told me last week, "At the end of the day, our issue -- choice -- is the one that cuts through, frankly, all the other crap that happens in an election season. The one issue where voters can make a clear and consistent choice very quickly is on the issue of abortion."
The national Republican Party, as well as the GOP electorate in most states, have already made their choice, clearly signaling that politicians who support reproductive rights aren't welcome in their caucus. But in a time of recession and war, it's unlikely that so-called "family values" issues will save the day for Republicans. 2008 may finally be the year when the GOP learns the limits of fear-based campaigning against women's rights.
