Actor Martin Sheen Backs Out of Pro-Abortion March Sponsorship
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 22, 2004
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Actor Martin Sheen has backed out of being listed as an endorser for the pro-abortion march sponsored by leading abortion advocacy groups. Whether the listing of him as a sponsor was accidental or if Sheen didn’t know the march’s purpose is to support abortion is still a question.
That Sheen, who plays a fictitious president on the hit NBC drama "West Wing," was listed as a sponsor of the pro-abortion march was a surprise. Though he holds liberal views on other political issues, Sheen is a longtime pro-life supporter.
In 2001, Sheen was listed by Feminists for Life, a pro-woman group, as a "Remarkable Pro-Life Man," along with actor Ben Stein, Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), and columnist George Will. Sheen’s wife Janet signed off on the article.
Sheen has also been a longtime supporter of the Seamless Garment Network, a pro-life group that also opposes war, poverty, abortion, racism, and capital punishment.
Calls from LifeNews.com to Glennis Liberty, Sheen’s publicist, were not returned by press time.
However, Serrin Foster, the president of Feminists for Life, suspects that Sheen or a representative may have signed up to be a sponsor of the march because of other political issues, not realizing that its main thrust is promoting abortion.
In a memo to Liberty, provided to LifeNews.com, Foster wrote, "We are concerned that you were not aware that support for abortion is a primary goal of the upcoming march that you have endorsed, or that your name was used without your permission."
"It is our sincere hope that you will contact the organizers of the march and ask them to remove your name from the list of celebrities who have endorsed this event, explaining to them that while you agree with many of their goals, the central goal of reproductive rights that includes abortion is not one that you endorse," Foster wrote.
Foster said her group has been "inundated with calls, e-mails and letters from members and the general public who are concerned that you were not properly informed of the primary goal of this march."
Sheen’s name, which originally appeared on the web site of the so-called "March for Women’s Lives," has been removed.
Born the seventh son of an Irish Catholic mother and a Spanish Catholic father, Martin Sheen saw three siblings come after him and later became aware that his mother’s first two children died at birth. His own birth was extremely traumatic in that neither mother nor child was expected to survive.
Despite Sheen’s pro-life views, he endorsed abortion advocate Howard Dean in the Democratic presidential primary.
Related web sites:
Feminists for Life – https://www.feministsforlife.org
