Pro-Life Women’s Group Takes on "Pro-Life" Democrat Who Backed Abortion Bill

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 21, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Pro-Life Women’s Group Takes on "Pro-Life" Democrat Who Backed Abortion Bill

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 21
, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — With the mantra that votes have consequences, a pro-life women’s group plans to spend as much as $300,000 to remind voters in the Pennsylvania congressional district of Kathy Dahlkemper that she reneged on her pro-life views when she supported the pro-abortion health care bill.

Dahlkemper is one of several Democrats the pro-life movement regarded as pro-life who joined Rep. Bart Stupak.

The Stupak group had promised to vote against the health care bill because of its massive abortion funding but wound up supporting it in exchange for an executive order pro-life groups say will not stop much abortion funding, if any.

Today the Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund announced its endorsement of Mike Kelly, the former Butler city councilman who is the Republican candidate this November against Dahlkemper in the third congressional district.

"Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper will soon realize, as Alan Mollohan and Bart Stupak already have, that votes do have consequences," SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser told LifeNews.com Monday morning.

"While Kathy Dahlkemper betrayed women and unborn children with her vote in favor of a pro-abortion health care bill and subsequently ushered in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade, we know that Mike Kelly will keep his promise to protect life," she said. "The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund is proud to endorse dependable pro-life leaders like Mike Kelly."

Leading up to the March 21 vote on the pro-abortion health care bill, SBA List efforts in Dahlkemper’s district included a press conference, radio ad and automated phone campaign urging her to vote against any bill including federally funded abortion.

An SBA List-commissioned poll conducted the week before the vote revealed that 79% of Dahlkemper’s constituents opposed federal funding of abortion and that 65% would be less likely to re-elect her if she voted for a bill including it.

After Dahlkemper voted in favor of the legislation, the SBA List launched a second radio ad campaign, encouraging constituents to express their disappointment with her vote, spending a combined total of $20,000 on ads in her district.

Now, the pro-life gorup plans to spend more than $300,000 educating Dahlkemper’s constituents about her vote.

Jim Geraghty of National Review, a conservative publication, says the spending will have an effect in a district where Dahlkemper will already face a tough re-election battle.

"Dahlkemper represents an R+3 district; in 2008, as Obama and McCain were roughly tied in her district, she won by 7,000 votes out of about 286,000," he noted.

As Dannenfelser noted, Mollohan, of West Virginia, already lost in a Democratic primary to a pro-life Democrat who said he would not have voted for the health care bill.

And other Democrats who were a part of the Stupak group who defected from pro-life groups face strong opposition as well.

Related web sites:
SBA List – https://www.SBA-List.org

 

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