Wrong-Way McCain Not the "Real McCoy"

Pro-choice Republicans [in New Hampshire's primary election] overwhelmingly preferred McCain above all the other candidates. [T]his might be due in part to McCain's recent comment that should his own daughter have an unwanted pregnancy, he believed the decision on how to handle it would be made in the family. Bingo, that's pro-choice. Clearly, if abortion were outlawed ... there would be nothing to decide.

Our biggest fear is the potential for the next president to appoint Supreme Court Justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. The next layer of anxiety is the threat that our daughters and sisters may not have the same opportunity that Senator McCain instinctively wants for his daughter.

--Press release from Republican Pro-choice Coalition, 2/2/00

McCain's people whisper, Don't worry. He's not really so anti- abortion.

--Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, 12/15/99

PANDERING, DOUBLE-TALKING, CLUELESS McCAIN

The above quotes are just samples of the enthusiasm "pro-choicers" and their friends in the institutional media have developed for presidential candidate John McCain. Is this the same John McCain who in the recent debates has claimed to be "pro-life"? It seems that McCain's "Straight Talk Express" is trying to move in opposite directions on two tracks at the same time.

Here is what Sen. McCain told the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle (8/19/99): "I'd love to see the point where [Roe v. Wade] is irrelevant, and could be replaced because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations." Abortion is " necessary?" Killing unborn children is necessary? Women would be " forced" to undergo "illegal and dangerous operations?" These are 30- year-old propaganda slogans, straight from the dusty archives of Planned Parenthood and NARAL.

The only way Roe v. Wade is going to be "irrelevant" is if it is going to be repealed. But McCain doesn't want to repeal Roe v. Wade: While he is "morally pro-life," he "would not seek to overturn Roe v. Wade tomorrow," because doing so would endanger the lives of women (World magazine interview, 8/21/99). Does it ever occur to the "morally pro-life" McCain that keeping Roe v. Wade on the books "endangers the lives" of unborn children--by the millions?

Let's bring in some perspective here. The number of dead children after 27 years of legalized abortion is about 39 million. As to maternal deaths from abortion, the Centers for Disease Control's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of August 9, 1997, gives statistics for the 20-year period from 1972-1991. According to Table 35 (p. 96), the numbers of abortion-related maternal deaths for 1972 (the year before abortion on demand became legal nationwide) are: legal abortions--24, illegal abortions--39, spontaneous abortions--25.

For the subsequent 19 years (1973-1991) of legalized abortion, the total numbers for maternal deaths are: legal abortions--263, illegal abortions--51, spontaneous abortions--159.

In the face of such statements, it won't do for McCain to point to his "17-year voting record." Let's remember that Vice President Al Gore and Democratic House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt had also once compiled mostly pro-life voting records in the House of Representatives. Then they "evolved" into full-blooded pro- abortionists to make themselves more acceptable to pro-abortion Democratic primary voters as they ran for higher office.

The media, of course, know what a duplicitous game McCain is playing, and they love it. On a CNN Crossfire (2/8/00) program about the press's infatuation with McCain, media observer Steven Brill (Brill's Content) said this:

"I had ... two different conversations with two of the more prominent reporters who are covering the campaign and who spent a lot of time with McCain, and both told me ...the same thing. As one of them put it: 'You know, we know McCain is pandering on gun control and abortion, and we know he really doesn't believe that stuff, but he has to say it. But at least when McCain panders like that, he sort of kind of lets us know so we know he knows, and he's not that hard-edged and he's really a good guy.' To which I responded ... if Mr. Straight Talk is pandering, isn't that more significant even than whatever his position is on abortion or gun control or anything else?"

WRONGHEADED McCAIN

It is abundantly clear that candidate McCain has no coherent pro-life philosophy, that he has no intention of implementing pro- life public policies should he become president, and that he is busy ingratiating himself to the pro-abortion establishment.

That McCain apparently has no commitment to the right to life cause is bad enough, but what is also upsetting is his single- minded and wrongheaded devotion to campaign finance "reform" that would shred the First Amendment and destroy the effectiveness of the right to life movement in the formulation of public policy. When it comes to campaign finance "reform," Mr. Straight Talk seems to be incapable of straight thought. Your rights to free speech--uncensored by an election bureaucracy--and to free association with like-minded citizens appear to mean nothing to him. "Reform" trumps the Constitution. (Isn't the president supposed to uphold the Constitution?)

It so happens that NRLC and several of its state affiliates have had to go to court repeatedly to protect our First Amendment rights against the censorious intrusions of a heavy-handed election bureaucracy. So we have abundant practical experience in this field. (NRLC's corporate counsel, James Bopp, has become the leading legal expert in this area.) Yet every time we have tried to reason with Sen. McCain over the speech-limiting and unconstitutional aspects of his "reform" proposals we have gotten nowhere.

In fact, lately McCain and his campaign staff have resorted to scurrilous accusations: We supposedly want to keep the abortion issue alive because it helps us raise money; we supposedly oppose campaign finance "reform" so that we won't lose our "six- figure salaries" (the first person who spots an NRLC employee with such a salary gets a prize); "Doug Johnson and the national pro-life committee have turned a cause into a business"; and so on. Dear Senator McCain, this isn't "straight talk." This is silly talk, dishonest talk, insulting talk, and vicious talk. This is the talk of "personal destruction"; in fact, it is Clinton talk.