The Obama campaign is going on the offense against John McCain for his determination to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Too many Americans think that McCain is a moderate on abortion rights. He isn't. He is a staunch opponent of reproductive rights for women. The disconnect between McCain's image as a moderate and his actual hostility to abortion rights came into sharp relief last week when a former delegate for Hillary Clinton told reporters during a press conference that McCain was committed to preserving Roe.
But nothing could be further from the truth. The lead item on the Human Dignity & Life page of the McCain website is titled: "Overturning Roe v. Wade."
McCain is an anti-abortion extremist, just like his running mate Sarah Palin. The entire GOP presidential ticket is dedicated to the elimination of women's reproductive rights.
And Obama is making sure that voters know it.
Obama's new radio ad, airing widely in at least seven swing states, tells voters McCain "will make abortion illegal." It's airing as McCain courts female voters with the addition of the staunchly anti-abortion governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, to his ticket.This attack puts McCain in a very difficult spot. He cannot even suggest that the ad misrepresents his position on abortion rights without infuriating the theocons who forced him to put Palin on the ticket.
Democrats had, until now, sought to appeal to women primarily on economic issues such as health care and workplace discrimination; abortion rights were hardly mentioned at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week. But women's rights groups have been urging Obama to attack McCain on the issue, pointing to polling showing that some women who support McCain think he supports abortion rights. In fact, the Arizona senator has long supported a ban on abortions, with exceptions for victims of rape and incest, and for pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother. Palin has an even firmer anti-abortion stance: She would require rape and incest victims to carry their pregnancies to term.
"Let me tell you: If Roe vs. Wade is overturned, the lives and health of women will be put at risk. That's why this election is so important," says the nurse-practitioner who narrates Obama's ad. "John McCain's out of touch with women today. McCain wants to take away our right to choose. That's what women need to understand. That's how high the stakes are."
An announcer then claims that "as president, John McCain will make abortion illegal," before playing an exchange on "Meet the Press" in which McCain told moderator Tim Russert that he favors "a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions."
His dilemma is that he cannot win the election without the independent and moderate Democratic women who might abandon him in droves if they knew his retrograde views on reproductive rights.
And this issue cannot be finessed. Either you believe women should be able to make their own reproductive decisions, or you don't. McCain could end up being impaled on the very wedge issue that his party has exploited so successfully for so many years.
