Mitt Romney’s hat is in the ring. Is he pro-life, as he claims? Several groups are urging caution.
BY PETE SHEEHAN
REGISTER CORRESPONDENT
February 25- March 03, 2007 Issue |
Posted 2/20/07 at 9:00 AM
BOSTON — Turnaround
is the title of Mitt Romney’s book about his tenure as president of the 2002
Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. The former Massachusetts governor is
credited for rescuing the games from scandal and the brink of financial ruin.
Now, both supporters and opponents
of Romney’s candidacy for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination might use
“turnaround” to describe his position on issues such as abortion and homosexual
“marriage.”
Romney, who announced his candidacy
Feb. 13, has described himself as the conservative candidate, declaring his
opposition to abortion and winning praise from many traditional family
advocates. They cite his leadership in countering the 2003 Massachusetts
Supreme Judicial Court ruling which declared the state’s marriage statute
unconstitutional because it does not permit same-sex “marriage.”
One prominent supporter is James
Bopp, legal counsel for the National Right to Life Committee.
“In one of our country’s most
liberal states, Mitt Romney has acted to protect the sanctity of life,” said
Bopp, a member of the Republican National Committee.
Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for
Romney who served as his communications director when Romney was governor, said
that the candidate is “pleased with Mr. Bopp’s support and he will be a primary
adviser on life issues as we go forward.”
Yet Romney’s critics cite his
earlier support for legal abortion and question the depth of his commitment to
traditional marriage.
“Despite his recent professed
conversion to the pro-life side of the debate after more than 30 years of
supporting Roe
v. Wade and legal abortion, when it comes to respect for the
sanctity of human life, Mitt Romney is on the wrong side,” said Colleen Parro,
head of Republican National Coalition for Life.
“He is the Republican version of
Bill Clinton,” said Laurie Letourneau, a former board member for Massachusetts
Citizens for Life and a past co-chairwoman of Life-Guard PAC, a political
action committee for electing pro-life legislators. She was honored by the
Massachusetts Family Institute as Citizen of the Year in 2002 for her
leadership and activism in getting more than 3,000 signatures on a petition to
allow the voters to amend by referendum the state’s constitution, defining
marriage exclusively as the union of one man and one woman.
“He is a political chameleon,
changing his position according to what suits him politically,” Letourneau
said, “and always sounding heartfelt while doing it.”
Massachusetts right-to-life and
traditional marriage advocates are divided on Romney. In early February, Sen.
Sam Brownback, R-Kan., also a declared candidate for the Republican nomination,
announced the names of a half-dozen such Massachusetts advocates who are
supporting him rather than Romney.
“Romney is not a pro-lifer in any
way,” said Roderick Murphy, who organized the group of Massachusetts advocates
for Brownback. Murphy is a co-founder of Life-Guard PAC and a crisis pregnancy
center in Worcester, Mass. “Nor did he show any leadership for traditional
values during most of his time as governor.”
Change of Heart
Nevertheless, in January nine
leaders in right-to-life and pro-family circles signed a letter thanking Romney
for his efforts. These leaders included Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon
as well as officials from Morality in Media of Massachusetts, Massachusetts
Citizens for Life, and the state Knights of Columbus.
“For four years Governor Romney has
been right there beside us — providing leadership on key issues,” the letter
reads.
Romney’s critics cite his history of
support for legal abortion in his unsuccessful 1992 challenge of Sen. Ted
Kennedy, D-Mass., and his successful 2002 gubernatorial campaign.
“Romney’s actions have to be seen in
context,” Bopp said. Though Romney ran as a supporter of legal abortion in
Massachusetts, where few statewide elected officials oppose abortion, he
frequently acted in defense of life while governor.
“On each of the issues that came before
him,” such as his vetoes of an emergency contraceptive bill and of a bill for
human cloning for embryonic stem-cell research, Fehrnstrom said, “he came down
on the side of life.”
The cloning issue, he continued, led
to Romney’s change of heart.
“It just hit me hard just how much
the sanctity of life had been cheapened by virtue of the Roe v. Wade
mentality,” Romney was quoted as saying in a National
Review Online interview.
Romney compared himself to other
Republican leaders, such as former President Ronald Reagan, who also came out
against legal abortion after once supporting it.
2 Ways of Looking At It
Similar disagreements surround
Romney’s record on the question of marriage for homosexual persons. His critics
cite a 1994 letter in which Romney wrote to activists vowing to make “equality
for gay and lesbians a mainstream concern.”
As for Massachusetts allowing same-sex “marriage” after the Judicial
Court’s 2003 decision, Letourneau and others fault Romney for allowing it to
happen. “He did nothing to stop it,” she said, noting that she had gathered
numerous signatures to push for a referendum to amend the state constitution
before the decision came down.
Once the ruling came down, she
argued, Romney could have hindered its implementation, such as ordering
justices of the peace not to perform such ceremonies. Instead, she said, he
ordered them to perform those ceremonies.
Fehrnstrom acknowledged that Romney
has opposed discrimination against persons who are homosexual. “The governor
believes that all people should be treated equally.”
However, Romney “always believed
that marriage is between a man and a woman,” he said. When the state Supreme
Court ruled otherwise, Fehrnstrom said, “Romney enforced a ‘residents-only’
policy that stopped same-sex couples from other states from coming to
Massachusetts to get ‘married,’ which prevented ‘gay marriage’ from being
visited on every other state in the nation.”
In addition, Fehrnstrom noted that
Romney, along with the activism of many citizens across Massachusetts, has been
able to move along legislation to force a referendum on a proposal to define
marriage as between and a man and woman.
Former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn has
also weighed in amid the clashing interpretations of Romney’s record. Flynn, a
Democrat who served as ambassador to the Holy See, opposes abortion and has
worked to restore the traditional definition of marriage.
He agreed that Romney got involved
in efforts to overturn the court’s marriage ruling somewhat belatedly, but his
involvement eventually was strong “and I think it was decisive.” As for
Romney’s opposition to abortion, Flynn acknowledged the doubts of many staunch
opponents of abortion. “There is reason for doubt,” he said.
“But I think you have to give him
the benefit of the doubt,” Flynn said, as well as continuing to scrutinize
Romney’s actions closely.
“It’s certainly better than all the
people on the other side, who for years opposed abortion,” Flynn said, “and are
now supporting it.”
Pete Sheehan is based in
Long Island, New York.
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