Colorado Springs, CO (LifeNews.com) -- Dr. James Dobson, a respected pro-life leader who is the founder of Focus on the Family, has said he will not support Fred Thompson for the Republican nomination for president. The comments come just weeks after Thompson announced his bid and despite his opposition to abortion.

Dobson's comments come in the form of an email he sent personally to friends and supporters and not on behalf of the organization he founded.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the email and said Dobson cited political issues other than pro-life ones as to why he wouldn't back Thompson.

Dobson also said Thompson appeared to not be a strong Christian who would speak about his faith and didn't appear to have the fire in the belly necessary to wage the kind of presidential campaign needed to defeat a pro-abortion Democrat next year.

"[Thompson] won't talk at all about what he believes, and can't speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail," Dobson wrote.

"He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent 'want to.' And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!" he added.

Gary Schneeberger, a Focus on the Family spokesman, told AP that Dobson indeed wrote the email in question.

Karen Hanretty, a representative of the Thompson campaign, responded to the remarks to the news service and said, "Fred Thompson has a 100 percent pro-life voting record."

"We're confident as voters get to know Fred, they'll appreciate his conservative principles, and he is the one conservative in this race who can win the nomination and can go on to defeat the Democratic nominee," she added.

In recent months, Thompson has been touting his pro-life credentials.

"I think Roe v. Wade was a bad decision. I think it was bad law and bad medicine," Thompson said in a recent appearance on CNN.

"You don't just get up one day and overturn the entire history of the country with regard to nature and major social policy, without any action by Congress, without any action by the American people or constitutional amendment, and that's what happened," Thompson explained.

The former Tennessee senator continued, "It shouldn't have happened. It ought to be reversed."

Those comments came on the heels of news reports that Thompson did some work for a pro-abortion group in 1991 when his law firm was hired by an abortion advocacy organization to lobby the White House on abortion issues.

His most comprehensive treatment of pro-life issues came in a video message he gave to attendees at the National Right to Life convention.

The video showed the former Tennessee senator with his wife and two young children and he told pro-life advocates that his family helps him appreciate pro-life values.

“When I was in the Senate a lot of people would come to see me and it usually would have to do with business matters or financial matters," Thompson said. "When you came to see me, I always knew it was about something much more important than that, the most important thing of all in this World and that is life."

"I must say that those issues are even more profound to me as the years go by. Jeri and I have truly been blessed," the well-known actor added.

Thompson said he has been pro-life at least since he first ran for the Senate in 1994 and received National Right to Life's endorsement and that he's been with the pro-life movement ever since.

"On abortion related votes I've been 100 percent," Thompson explained saying he's voted against federal funding for abortion, Roe v. Wade and partial-birth abortion -- a procedure he called "infanticide."

The potential presidential candidate also spoke extensively on the issue of embryonic stem cell research for the first time since the buzz built up about the possibility of him running.

His comments put him in line with the pro-life movement at a time when other candidates who oppose abortion, like John McCain, favor the destructive science.

"On stem cell research, I'm for adult stem cell research not stem cell research where embryos of unborn children are destroyed. It looks to me like there is a lot of promising developments as far as adult stem cell research is concerned anyway and we don't need to go down that other road," Thompson said.