Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Political pundits on Wednesday ramped up talk of Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison as a potential dark hose pick for presidential candidate John McCain's running mate. While Hutchison mostly votes pro-life on abortion and bioethics issues in Congress, she is officially pro-abortion and would upset pro-life voters.

Hutchison would bring a positive list of attributes to a ticket with McCain, political observers say.

They focus on how she could attract women voters upset that pro-abortion candidate Barack Obama spurned Hillary Clinton and tout her knowledge of the issues and experience in both state and federal government.

However, Hutchinson, while not as strongly pro-abortion as Tom Ridge, Joe Lieberman or Rudy Giuliani, does support abortion.

She reaffirmed that position with a vote in March 2003 in favor of an amendment to the partial-birth abortion ban supporting the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that allowed virtually unlimited abortions.

"It is the sense of the Senate that the decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade was appropriate and secures an important constitutional right; and such decision should not be overturned," the amendment read.

Hutchison has also upset pro-life advocates with her repeated votes in favor of embryonic stem cell research funding. That has held down her voting record scores from the National Right to Life Committee in recent years.

While Hutchison has voted for a myriad of abortion limits -- everything from banning taxpayer funding of abortions, to enforcing parental notification to prohibiting partial-birth abortions -- the stem cell votes dropped her to an 85 percent in this Congress and 75 percent in the previous session.

Hutchison's views on bioethics played out in a feud with Texas Governor Rick Perry, as the senator called on Perry to put in place a plan to aggressively pursue state taxpayer funding for embryonic stem cell research.

One state pro-life advocate told LifeNews.com at the time that Hutchison also opposed a ban on all forms of human cloning.

"While we appreciate Senator Hutchison's several pro-life votes in the U.S. Senate, she unfortunately remains in the pro-abortion and pro-cloning camp," Joe Pojman of the Texas Alliance for Life, said.

Related web sites:
National Right to Life - http://www.nrlc.org

 

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