New York Times Examines Romney’s Views On Abortion Rights Ahead Of Iowa Straw Poll

August 14, 2007 – 10:44 pm | posted in Abortion

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, has come under a “furious assault” from some other Republican candidates and a “powerful network” of abortion-rights opponents in the days leading up to the Iowa straw poll, the New York Times reports. Nearly all the “attacks are built on the idea” that because Romney became an abortion-rights opponent “only relatively recently,” he “cannot be counted on as a committed social conservative,” the Times reports. The question about Romney’s previous support for abortion rights has been a “persistent problem,” and candidates have used the issue “more than any other to try to plant doubts about [his] principles,” the Times reports.

Although Romney “widely” is expected to win the straw poll, the “most important aspect of the contest in the long run may not be the outcome so much as the test it presents of his political durability and his explanations to conservatives across the country of how and why his positions — especially on abortion — have evolved in recent years,” according to the Times. Romney has suggested that his victory in the Iowa straw poll could be “read as evidence” that the abortion issue “would not hobble his hopes of appealing” to conservative voters nationwide, the Times reports. However, if Romney is “proved wrong,” the situation for abortion-rights opponents could turn into a case of “unintended consequences,” according to the Times. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also is running for the Republican nomination, might benefit from Romney’s “faltering,” but it also could help former Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.), who is expected to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination next month, the Times reports (Nagourney/Luo, New York Times, 8/10).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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