Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL: Pro-Choice America, will be speaking from the convention floor early tomorrow evening. At the Sheraton Denver this afternoon, she spoke with TAP's Dana Goldstein about using reproductive rights as a wedge issue this election year.
Joe Biden is all anyone is talking about this weekend. Biden supports Roe, but also supports the Hyde Amendment. In other words, he opposes public financing of abortions, in direct contrast with the position of NARAL and other pro-choice groups. What do you think Obama's choice of Biden says about Obama's commitment to reproductive rights?
We disagreed with Sen. Biden on a few points. But I think the point to be made here is that it is Sen. Obama who is the nominee. It is Sen. Obama who will be setting the policy. So. That's where the responsibility lies. With Sen. Obama, and he's fully pro-choice.
Is Obama doing enough to draw out his contrast on reproductive health with John McCain? Should the Obama campaign be running television ads on the topic of choice?
I think they're doing a lot. When he spoke both in Virginia and New York, he spoke about the importance of protecting a woman's right to choose. When he was at Saddleback, he stated it loudly and clearly and proudly, that he is pro-choice and that he will defend that right. So I have every confidence that he is out there on it, he's talking about it, he's strong when he speaks, and he's articulate. So we have absolutely no uneasiness at all.
Speaking of Saddleback, we saw there the airing of an accusation against Obama that has been circulating in the right-wing blogosphere for a long time: that he does not support life-saving measures for babies supposedly "born alive" during abortions. (Click here for more coverage of Obama and the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.) What's your assessment of that tactic?
The bigger point here is that John McCain is trying to divert people's attention from his record. And he's speaking to his base. Those pro-choice independent and Republican women will vote for Sen. Obama when they find out what McCain's record is -- a 25-year anti-choice voting record. So to me, it's just them trying to divert attention from John McCain's record.
By talking about “born alive” infants after abortion?
That's right. Let's keep in mind that George W. Bush never called for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. John McCain has. He goes farther than George Bush. That’s also the strategy with the talk about Giuliani speaking, and Ridge. It’s that old trick. Look over there, look over there, and don’t look right here at John McCain’s record.
There's an idea out there that this year's Democratic platform represents a victory of sorts for folks like the Rev. Jim Wallis, who are pro-life Democrats focused on reducing the number of abortions. Do you agree?
Well, I was on the platform committee, so we have been intimately involved in crafting the language. It is very, very strong. It reflects our mission in terms of protecting women's reproductive choices. In addition, it reflects that we have always, as pro-choice Americans, supported access to birth control, supported age-appropriate, accurate sex-education, that we have always supported adoption, that we have always supported carrying pregnancies to term. And that's what it means to be pro-choice in this country. But women make lots of choices in their reproductive years, including the right to terminate a pregnancy. And we support women in those choices.
One of those choices is what sort of contraception to use. At Saddleback, John McCain said life begins at conception.
You know, Americans come to that belief with their own conscience and their own science. That's America.
But what does that mean for messaging around the issue of birth control and emergency contraception?
Let's start with the fact that 97 percent of the women in this country have at one time accessed birth control. So accessing birth control is a mainstream value. And most Americans can hold that they might have personal beliefs that are different from somebody else. But they also know that fundamentally, government cannot be telling them that they cannot access birth control. So to me, again, this is about who decides. The issue about birth control is so mainstream. It is John McCain who is out of touch with women in this country.
What will NARAL be doing on the ground in terms of get-out-the-vote this year?
Our program this year is called "Protect and Elect." We have to protect the seats we gained last cycle, in 2006. We gained 23 pro-choice seats in the House and three in the Senate. We'll be looking then at those seats that we think we can pick up in the Senate, including Oregon, Jeff Merkley against Gordon Smith. And Mr. Merkley is talking extensively about reproductive choice. Of course, Jeanne Shaheen, a champion of reproductive choice in New Hampshire. Then here we are sitting right in Colorado, where Mark Udall is running for an important seat.
So we target Republican and independent pro-choice women voters. That's who we go after in educating them on John McCain's record. We will mail them, we will call them, we will knock on their doors. And often what our polling shows is that women who are pro-choice, at the end of the campaigns, when the health-care plans sound a little bit the same, and gosh, the war -- they're not sure what the exact answer is on the war. The one issue they will go to look at in making their determination is the issue of reproductive choice. And that is the determining factor in who they will vote for, and it can be the margin of difference in winning and losing.
--Dana Goldstein
