NYT Letters To The Editor Respond To Opinion Piece On GOP Election Defeats, Antiabortion Movement

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 11 Dec 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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The New York Times on Wednesday published letters to the editor in response to a Dec.7 opinion piece by Ross Douthat that examined whether the antiabortion movement can be blamed for the Republican Party's losses in the 2008 presidential election. Summaries of two of the letters appear below.

~ Jennifer Blei Stockman: Leaders of the abortion-rights movement "need to understand that pro-choice Republicans are not absolutists," Blei Stockman, co-chair of the Republican Majority for Choice, writes in a letter to the editor. According to Blei Stockman, 78% of Republicans polled in August said abortion issues should be decided by a woman, not the government, and an "overwhelming 66% of self-described 'pro-life' voters believe abortion should be decided by a woman." She adds that the Republican Party's "approach on the issue of personal choice should fall in line with its core tenet of smaller government -- less intrusion in our pocketbooks and our personal lives." Blei Stockman continues that Douthat's "attack on the pro-choice movement is a ruse, and his encouragement of opportunistic extreme policies will hurt the GOP further." She concludes, "If the GOP is to succeed in rebuilding its broken party, it needs to move past a failed plan for party realignment toward the extreme and revive its broad appeal to its true moderate majority" (Blei Stockman, New York Times, 12/10).

~ Paula Hillard: Douthat is "out of touch with this country when he characterizes abortion bans and mandatory parental involvement as 'compromise,'" Paula Hillard, a gynecologist and board member of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, writes in a letter to the editor. Hillard writes that she is "grateful" to voters who defeated the proposed abortion ban on the South Dakota ballot and the California parental notification initiative "for keeping my patients' decisions about their health private." She concludes that "[o]verturning Roe v. Wade would not be a compromise, but a repudiation of what Americans believe about abortion" (Hillard, New York Times, 12/10).

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