GOP chooses choice?

Maybe
in an alternate universe, the Republican Party is made up of pro-choice
tree-huggers who favor raising taxes for federally funded social programs.

            One group of GOP activists, however,
claims at least one of these precepts to be true right here on Earth.

            According to the newly renamed
Republican Majority for Choice, three out of every four Republicans are
pro-choice.

            That’s three out of every four
registered members of the party of ardent, passionate pro-lifers such as House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, Attorney General
John Ashcroft, and US President George W. Bush. Three out of four of the base
voting block who put these men in power supposedly favor individual choice on
the abortion issue.

            “I think that’s fantasy, sheer
fantasy,” said Henrietta Supervisor Jim Breese, a Republican who is
skeptical, to say the least, of the group’s claims.

            “If anything, it’s the other
way around,” he said.

Republican
Majority for Choice based its findings on a nationwide poll conducted in May.

            The group believes the anti-abortion
stance of the Republican Party is the result of “social extremists”
who spend inordinate sums of money to impose their “ideological zealotry”
on the GOP, according to a letter distributed to voters last month.

            In the spring, Majority for Choice
commissioned American Viewpoint, a conservative opinion research company based
in Virginia, to conduct the nationwide survey.

            “We asked the question,
‘Regardless of how you personally feel about the issue of abortion, do you feel
a woman, her family, and her doctor should make the decision whether or not she
should have an abortion, or should the government?'” says American
Viewpoint Vice-President Bob Carpenter.

            Of the respondents, Carpenter said
73 percent chose “a woman, her family, and her doctor” while only 13
percent chose “the government.” The rest were undecided or didn’t
know.

            American Viewpoint surveyed 1,006
adults throughout the country, roughly the same number of respondents used by
organizations such as Gallup. In addition to the 73 percent of Republicans who
say the choice should remain with the woman, 61 percent of GOP respondents said
that while they themselves might not choose abortion, they would not take that
right away from other women, according to Carpenter’s findings.

“There
has always been a ‘silent’ Republican majority for choice,” says the
group’s co-chair, Jennifer Blei Stockman. “Moderate Republicans and many
conservatives across America want to bring the GOP traditions of less
government, personal freedom, and privacy to the top of our party’s
agenda.”

            When it comes to the abortion
debate, however, it appears, at least from what local Republicans are saying,
the group has a rocky road ahead.

            “It’s just propaganda,”
says Chili Supervisor and former Monroe County Legislator Tracy Logel, another
local Republican who doubts the veracity of the survey’s findings. “I find
that very surprising, I don’t think it’s true,” she says.

            Logel calls the study an
“insidious infiltration” by a minority of pro-choice activists who
had “gone too far.”

            “I think it’s a very deceptive
way to drum up support for their side, using deceptive information,” she
says, adding that the group’s agenda is simply to “get [the study] in
print and get people to believe it.”

            Majority for Choice’s national
headquarters are in Washington, DC, though there is a state office in New York
City. Among the members the group lists on its advisory committee are New York
Governor George Pataki, former President Gerald Ford, and Pennsylvania Senator
Arlen Specter.

            Locally, Congressman Amo Houghton is
listed on the 33-member committee. (Calls made to his offices were not returned
as of press time.)

            The group describes itself as a
nationwide organization of Republicans who subscribe to the party’s traditional
principles of individual liberty. On social issues, the group endorses the
“big tent” philosophy of “inclusion and tolerance on social issues,”
according to its website.

            “We support the protection of
Roe v. Wade and want to ensure that the right to choose is personal and NOT
political,” the site states.

            Majority for Choice believes a false
impression of an anti-abortion majority within the GOP exists because of a
combination of factors. Chief among them: the Democratic Party’s maneuvering to
create the impression it is the exclusive party for pro-choice voters, and the
Republican Party’s fear of alienating its morally conservative base.

            “We are in the majority, we are
in the right, and we stand for the traditional values of the Republican
Party,” the group states in its fund-raising letter.

Majority for
Choice received some attention earlier this year for its assistance in a
tough primary battle between Specter and a more conservative Republican
challenger, Pennsylvania Congressman Ray Toomey. In a rare in-party challenge
to a sitting US Senator, Toomey attacked Specter as being too liberal, citing
his pro-choice stance as evidence. Specter won the April primary by two
percentage points.

            The group touts Specter’s win, as
well as last year’s election of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger,
another pro-choice Republican, as evidence of its growing appeal.

            “A clear majority of
Republicans believe that the widest array of reproductive health choices should
be available, including education, prevention, motherhood, abstinence,
adoption, and safe, legal abortion,” Stockman says.

            Still, a close primary victory in a
swing-state and a gubernatorial election in a highly Democratic region does not
a majority make, and local Republicans willing to discuss the survey were not
ready to jump on the pro-choice bandwagon just yet.

            “I don’t believe a word of
it,” Breese says of the group’s assertions. “I’ve been around
Republican Party politics for a long time, long enough to know it’s not true.
The national Republican Party is strongly pro-life.”

This article appears in Jun 23-29, 2004.