NEW ORLEANS — Trying to distinguish themselves in front of an important group of social conservative activists, Republican White House hopefuls on Friday used the National Right to Life Convention to share personal stories and detail the abortion restrictions they’ve helped write into law.
The question now is whether the scramble helps or hinders an anti-abortion movement seeking unity as Republicans look to win back the presidency.
National Right to Life political director Karen Cross urged the assembly to “make a decision right now that the issue of life trumps all else.”
Carol Tobias, the group’s president, argued in an interview that President Barack Obama benefited in both of his national victories from social conservatives who didn’t back John McCain in 2008 or Mitt Romney in 2012.
“The quickest way to defeat a pro-lifer,” Tobias said, “is to fall in love with your candidate and then get your feelings hurt when they don’t win the nomination.”
The candidates gave repeated nods to those sentiments, praising each other and hammering Democratic favorite Hillary Clinton, who supports abortion rights. Still, they spent most of their energy asserting their own supremacy on the issue.
Santorum boasted of how he sponsored the federal law that bans certain late-term abortion procedures after initially soft-pedaling his abortion stance because of Pennsylvania’s closely divided electorate.
Rick Perry predicted the next president will nominate as many as four Supreme Court justices — who could presumably overturn the 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationally. “If I have the opportunity to put justices on the Supreme Court, they will not be squishy,” the former Texas governor said.
Public opinion, meanwhile, remains divided. An Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in January and February found that 51 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 45 percent think it should be illegal in most or all cases.
At NARAL Pro-Choice America, a leading abortion rights advocacy group, Sasha Bruce said that means Republicans “are fighting over a slice of the minority.”
