Abortion Feud Between Sam Brownback and Romney, Tancredo Continues 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 26, 2007
Ames, IA (LifeNews.com) — The feud over abortion between Republican presidential candidates Sam Brownback and Mitt Romney and Tom Tancredo continued on Wednesday. The dispute centers on radio advertisements the Brownback campaign is running saying Romney and Tancredo have compromised on their pro-life views.
The Romney calls discuss a donation Mitt’s wife Ann made to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Tancredo calls talk about a donation the congressman received from a pro-abortion activist in Michigan.
His campaign has defended the calls but Brownback, as he toured a crisis pregnancy center in Ames, defended them personally on Wednesday.
"If anything we’re saying is untrue, I will issue an apology," Brownback told reporters, according to the Des Moines newspaper. "But nothing I’m saying is untruthful. They haven’t been hesitant about pointing these issues out on me."
As he toured a Birthright center, Brownback said abortion is a "gut-check issue" for Republicans and said he wouldn’t apologize for pressing pro-life themes in his campaign.
Romney spokesman Tim Albrecht told the Register that it is time for the Brownback campaign to show some "decency" on the issue.
"It’s particularly troubling that a campaign has resorted to attacking Ann Romney personally with these despicable phone calls," he said.
Meanwhile, longtime pro-life advocate Phyllis Schlafly defended Tancredo from Brownback’s contention that he should return a donation from John Tanton, who supports Tancredo’s anti-immigration stance but was a founder of Planned Parenthood in Michigan.
Tancredo has demanded an apology, saying he has a clear pro-life record over 30 years as a member of Congress and the Colorado state legislature.
Now Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum and a well-known pro-life advocate, is bashing Brownback for attacking Tancredo and called the phone calls to Iowa voters about the donation "ugly."
"I want to go on record as saying I’ve known Tom Tancredo for 30 years and I know for sure he has always been a champion of the right to life of the unborn," Schlafly said in a recorded call for the Tancredo campaign that also went out to Iowa voters.
Schlafly said Monday on WHO Radio’s Jan Mickelson show that Brownback was being hypocritical because he has accepted donations from SBC Communications, a company that has been on pro-life boycott lists.
