Fred Thompson Set to Launch His Campaign Next Week, Opposes Abortion 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 30, 2007
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Actor and attorney Fred Thompson announced Thursday that he will make the formal declaration next week that he is officially a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. The former Tennessee senator has said repeatedly in recent months that he opposes abortion and embryonic stem cell research.
In a statement he released today, Thompson said, "I believe that there are millions of Americans who know that our security and prosperity are at risk if we don’t address the challenges of our time."
The official announcement will come in a video broadcast on his web site followed by a five day tour of key primary battle ground states like Iowa and South Carolina.
Thompson is scheduled to participate in a television appearance next week but will not participate in a debate that is slated for Wednesday night in New Hampshire.
He has spent months running a potential campaign for president that has partially shielded him from criticism and allowed him to boost his polling numbers on the hopes that he could salvage what some see as a poor field of Republican candidates.
Weeks ago, Thompson repeated the statements he’s made repeatedly over the last several months that he opposes abortion.
"I think Roe v. Wade was a bad decision. I think it was bad law and bad medicine," Thompson said in an 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.
The former attorney and actor then compiled a 100 percent pro-life voting record while representing Tennessee in the Senate and has repeatedly said he favors overturning Roe v. Wade.
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.
