Pro-Choice Republicans Stake Claim to Their Party

"I love this fight!" said MSNBC host Chris Matthews on Hardball on January 10, after hosting a segment in which Club for Growth president Matthew Toomey and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins discussed, unenthusiastically at best, the slate of Republican presidential candidates. Though neither guest issued a frank endorsement, at the conclusion of the show -- after banter about why former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee were both inappropriate candidates for the Republican Party, for, of course, opposite reasons, Matthews wrapped it up: "I love the fact that you have X'd out Rudy and X'd out Huckabee, leaving us with McCain and Romney." Toomey quickly corrected: "I don't X out Giuliani." To that, Perkins immediately retorted, "Then I take back Huckabee."

The strain between the primary commitment to fiscal conservatism and limited government in the Republican Party and the political expediency of a socially conservative voting bloc willing to show up on election day may not be a new one, but the fissures are showing publicly in this presidential election as never before. When the identical Perkins-Toomey match-up occurred on Hardball in June 2006, Tony Perkins said, "Most of the social conservatives are both fiscally and socially conservative. So, they are just as concerned about the fiscal policies as well." It was easy to say so back then. Now that Republican candidates present clear primary affiliations -- social conservatism (Huckabee), or strong defense and low taxes (Giuliani), for instance -- merely waving encouragingly at the legs of the Republican Party platform for which candidates feel little ardor themselves will not be enough. From the early embrace of Huckabee to the resurgence of John McCain, this year's campaign offers a menu of ever-resorting options embodying the range of Republican political commitments, and it's unclear which will prevail. Writing in the New York Times about the lack of a clear "G.O.P. anchor," Adam Nagourney said, "This is a party that is adrift, deeply divided and unsure of how to counter an energized Democratic Party."

For Kellie Ferguson, president of the Republican Majority for Choice (RMC), a group that organizes pro-choice Republicans to advocate for a wide spectrum of reproductive health issues, this is progress. "You're not automatically going to win the Republican nomination by saying you're the pro-life candidate anymore," says Ferguson. "I think the old strategy of, okay, it doesn't really matter where I personally stand but I say I'm pro-life and will do everything I can to overturn [Roe] and I automatically get that twenty percent of the party -- that's not happening."

What Ferguson disparages most is the claiming and renouncing of the pro-life mantle simply for political gain. In that same article on the missing G.O.P. anchor, Nagourney claimed that it was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney who has tried most "assiduously … to stitch the ideological fabric of his party back together. He shifted positions on some social issues -- including abortion rights, stem cell research and gay rights -- with an eye to winning the allegiance of social conservatives." And this is what infuriates the Republican Majority for Choice. Rather than seeing Romney's flip-flopping as an indication of some sympathy, however disposable, to a woman's right to choose, RMC sees Romney as the worst offender of the bunch on choice issues.

The Associated Press reports that in 2002, when Romney was running for governor of Massachusetts, he filled out a survey issued by the Republican Majority for Choice, in which he checked off "yes" to the question "Do you support a woman's constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion without government interference, as defined by Roe v. Wade?", and also indicated his support for Medicaid funding for abortions for poor women and the removal of "anti-choice language form the National Republican platform." But given the inconsistent track record Romney has racked up since then, RMC feels, as Jennifer Stockman, the group's national co-chair, puts it, "betrayed."