Abortion-Rights Opponents Should Support McCain For President, Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 19 Mar 2008 - 9:00 PDT

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Abortion-rights opponents should support Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and "work hard to get him elected," Robert George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, writes in a Philadelphia Inquirer opinion piece. George writes that although McCain "has been the cause of some serious headaches for the pro-life movement," he offers abortion-rights opponents "by far the more appealing prospect."

According to George, McCain's campaign finance reform legislation and his support for human embryonic stem cell research funding policy are "serious concerns" for "pro-life voters." However, McCain's "pro-life record as a whole is very strong" and is not "the record of a politician hostile to the pro-life cause or generally unreliable on pro-life issues," George writes. He adds that as president, McCain "would uphold ... crucial pro-life policies," including the so-called "Mexico City" policy -- which bars U.S. funding from going to international groups that provide, counsel on, advocate or seek changes to laws regarding abortion -- as well as the Hyde amendment, which forbids the use of federal funds to pay for an abortion except in cases of rape or incest, or when a woman's life is in danger. McCain has also pledged to nominate strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court modeled after Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts, George adds.

According to George, abortion-rights opponents must think about these issues in considering who to support. Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) would lead a "jihad against key pro-life legislative achievements of the past decade, including the partial-birth abortion ban [and] the Unborn Victims of Violence Act," George writes, adding that McCain "supported all these initiatives and would work to protect them from a hostile Democrat Congress."

"Over 40 years of political struggle, the pro-life movement has learned not to make the perfect the enemy of the good," George writes, adding, "This crucial election is no time to forget that." Abortion-rights opponents "should continue to press the argument with John McCain on points on which we disagree with him," but opponents of abortion rights "should also support him and work hard to get him elected" president. In a race against Clinton and Obama, McCain "is by far the better pro-life choice," George concludes (George, Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/16).

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