AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN MCCAIN

By Carol Tobias
NRL PAC Director

Senator McCain, I have just read another of your contemptuous comments about pro-lifers. For someone who likes to call himself pro-life, you assign some pretty deceitful motives to the pro- life movement.

You (or your campaign aides) have said:

1) That groups want to keep the abortion issue alive "because it helps them raise money" (John McCain, Associated Press, 10/23/99).

2) "The right to life organization is deathly afraid of McCain becoming president, because they know he will enact campaign finance reform and they will lose their six-figure salaries" (Mike Dennehy, New England political director for the McCain campaign, Concord Monitor, 1/12/00).

3) "Doug Johnson [NRLC legislative director] and the national pro- life committee have turned a cause into a business... uncontrolled, undisclosed contributions may be reduced and it may harm their efforts to continue this huge business they've got going in Washington, D.C." (John McCain, NBC's Meet the Press 1/31/00).

4) "I'm tired of this polarization on this issue. Both ends of the spectrum have attacked me, and they- they- they've turned their cause into a business" (John McCain, ABC's This Week, 2/6/00).

5) "They're [pro-life groups] not worried about the issue of abortion. We have been polarized on this issue by these extremes who have no interest in seeing us come together" (John McCain, Washington Post, 2/5/00).

Senator McCain, how dare you?

I have been involved in the pro-life movement for 20 years. I have yet to meet anyone who is in this "business" for the money. One million, three hundred thousand unborn babies die from abortion every year in this country.

To attribute such dishonorable motives to anyone trying to save those babies is beneath contempt. What you should know is that when you attack an organization like NRLC, you are

disparaging the efforts of our 3,000 chapters and the hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the country who work with us to do everything legally possible to save these babies. Our president is an unpaid volunteer and no NRLC staff person has ever received a "six-figure salary." Yet your Senate salary is more than $140,000 a year. One of your aides scathingly referred to our organization as being concerned about losing our $1,000 suits. One of our state executive directors (jokingly) asked what a $1,000 suit looked like, admitting that his family had received the earned-income tax credit for the last three years.

Our organization operates through the contributions of pro- lifers all over the country who believe in what we're doing. Our average contribution is around $30. Unlike your campaign, we operate without the use of tax dollars. (In fact, since the New Hampshire primary your campaign has raised more money than our political action committee has raised in the last year. If money can corrupt, who is being corrupted?)

If you are interested in the truth, Senator McCain, you are welcome to come by our office anytime to meet our staff and find out for yourself if these people consider this cause to be just a "business." You will meet some of the most sincere, dedicated, hardworking people to be found anywhere. They are talented, intelligent, and professional. All work long hours in less-than- posh office space because they truly care about protecting unborn babies.

If facts matter to you, you are also welcome to visit the offices of our state affiliates. These offices vary in size. Some of the states have no paid staff while some have several paid staff. Most of the organizations have only one or two paid employees. They, too, are sincere, dedicated, and hardworking people who put a lot of time and effort into saving defenseless unborn babies.

Senator McCain, you are welcome to spend time with any of our 3,000 chapters and their faithful volunteers. Many meet monthly in a home, a church basement, or other local building. I dare you to ask any of them if they're in this "business" for the money.

You see, Senator McCain, when you mock NRLC or other pro-life organizations and question our sincerity, you denounce the hardworking Americans who care enough to spend much of their time and resources helping those they will never meet - - the unborn children whose lives were saved because someone cared enough to stand up and speak out.

When you unjustly attack our legislative department, you are attacking the millions of people who deeply care about how their senators and representatives vote on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and other pro-life legislation. When you insult our legislative efforts, you insult the millions of Americans who don't want their tax dollars used to promote the killing of unborn children in any way.

At times, my anger turns to sadness. How can you, after so many years in the Senate, know so little about us?

One other thing - - you may not like it, but this nation's founding fathers wrote a document called the Constitution. This special document allows citizens to organize and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Our grievance is that over a million unborn children are killed by abortion every year and you now want to tie our hands so that we can't speak out against this atrocity.

If you truly care about the fate of unborn children, you would encourage that activity, which is at the heart of a representative democracy, not try to shut it down.

One final question, Senator McCain. We're trying to save babies by using the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. If we are not allowed to speak up to save these babies, who will?