NOW Again Attacks Obama's Illinois Voting Record on Abortion Bills [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: NOW Again Attacks Obama's Illinois Voting Record on Abortion Bills
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 5, 2008; Page A08

A national women's rights group supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) distributed an e-mail yesterday accusing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) of being soft on abortion rights, revisiting an eleventh-hour attack that some analysts credited with swaying female voters in New Hampshire. The e-mail from Rosemary J. Dempsey, president of the Connecticut National Organization for Women, told members that Obama's record during his time in the Illinois Senate included several instances in which he voted "present" instead of yes or no on abortion-related legislation.

The e-mail quotes Bonnie Grabenhofer, the president of Illinois NOW, as saying that "voting present on those bills was a strategy that Illinois NOW did not support," and adding: "We made it clear at the time that we disagreed with the strategy. . . . Voting present doesn't provide a platform from which to show leadership and say with conviction that we support a woman's right to choose and these bills are unacceptable."

The Clinton campaign has made the same charge repeatedly over the past year.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), an Obama supporter, sent out a reply to the NOW e-mail yesterday afternoon, defending his record on abortion and criticizing the e-mail as an effort to "to falsely attack and artificially divide us."

"The facts are clear -- in the Illinois state senate, choice advocates asked strong pro-choice legislators like Senator Obama to vote 'present' on Republican-designed bills like a ban on partial birth abortion to protect a woman's right to choose," she wrote. "Senator Obama has always had a 100 percent pro-choice rating, and he is the only candidate running for President who stood up and spoke out when South Dakota passed an incredibly restrictive ban on abortion."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/04/AR2008020402980.html