by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 20, 2005
Washington,
DC (LifeNews.com) -- Before the November elections, Karen White
of the pro-abortion political action committee Emily's List, admitted
abortion wasn't resonating with women voters.
Now that there is a chance the Democratic Party could select a pro-life advocate as its next chairman, she's changing her tune.
In July, White told the Christian Science Monitor newspaper what recent polls show: abortion is not an issue that drives women voters nor is it their top priority.
Abortion "is not an issue where a woman wakes up every morning and says, 'I am going to look up what my candidate thinks on abortion," she said.
"Now, while it may be an important issue, and she may have a very strong opinion about it, [it] is not what is driving her to vote," White admitted.
Yet, in an interview with the Monitor this week, White chides Democrats who say abortion was an issue that contributed to John Kerry's loss in November and gains in the House and Senate for pro-life advocates.
Some Democrats "using choice as a scapegoat for our top-of-the-ticket losses in November," White said.
To back up her claim, White cites polling data indicating that other political issues such as terrorism and the economy were more important to voters than abortion.
The Monitor takes White to task.
"To political centrists, those numbers miss the point," the newspaper writes. "It was a basket of cultural issues, including abortion … that hurt Senator Kerry in important swing states like Ohio."
"Indeed, says John Green, an expert on the role of religion in politics at the University of Akron, Kerry might not have lost some traditional Catholic votes if he hadn't had a 100 percent pro-abortion-rights voting record," the Monitor explained.
Still, Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Federation, agreed with White and claimed, "Abortion really wasn't an issue in the last election."
