Dennis Kucinich Not Ashamed of His Flip-Flop From Pro-Life to Pro-Abortion 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 12, 2007
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was a darling of the pro-life movement before he decided to run for president the first time in 2004. The liberal Ohio congressman and former mayor of Cleveland was one of the few on his side of the aisle in Congress with a consistent pro-life voting record.
As late as 2001 Kucinich called himself pro-life and had a 95 percent pro-life voting record, according to National Right to Life.
He opposed partial-birth abortions and said in 1996 he believed life began at conception.
Yet, as presidential wannabes such as Dick Gerphart, and Jesse Jackson did, Kucinich turned his back on the pro-life community when aspirations for higher office began to take hold.
According to a TownHall report, Kucinich said last year that "only those who agree to uphold Roe v. Wade should be nominated for the Supreme Court."
Kucinich explained the turnaround in an interview with PBS last month.
"It was long before I ran for president the first time that I came to an understanding of how this issue was tearing America apart and how it’s possible to simultaneously stand for a woman’s right to choose and, at the same time, work to make abortions less likely," he said.
Though he drew the support of some Hollywood elites and left-wing ideologues, Kucinich’s candidacy failed to gain any traction from most Democrats last time around. He dropped out without capturing any primary states.
The congressman has pressed his pro-abortion views during the campaign this year.
In an April debate, he said any of his appointments to the Supreme Court would reflect his pro-abortion views.
"I don’t know how it could be otherwise," he said.
Kucinich has come a long way since his days backing the right to life for unborn children, despite polls showing him with little chance to capture the Democratic party’s presidential nod.
In an unscientific poll of its membership last week, NARAL said nearly 17 percent of its members backed his candidacy for president.
Kucinich, the eldest of seven children, first gained prominence in 1977, when he became the youngest person ever to be elected to serve as a big-city mayor. He was 31 when he took over the Cleveland mayor’s office.
When the city went bankrupt, Kucinich took the political heat and he failed to win re-election.
He did not return to public office until 1994, when he was elected to the Ohio Senate. He later sought and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he still serves.
