Welcome to Republicans For Choice PAC

"Are Antis winning the war?"

About 1980 the Republican Party was hijacked by a band of dedicated and vocal anti-choice fanatics. Not so long ago those same fanatics hijacked the high road on the abortion issue. They creatively constructed a public relations strategy designed to put us on the offensive using an issue created out of whole cloth…the so-called partial birth abortion. But instead of calling it what it was; the use of taxpayer money to conduct a public relations campaign, the pro-choice movement moved courageously to protect women’s lives and the doctor-patient privilege, but lost the PR battle.

So how do we get the high road back? Let me offer a couple of strategic ideas.

First, we must get the pollsters, all of them, to go back to asking the question, “Who should decide- the woman or government as to her reproductive health?” Pollsters dropped that question in favor of the self labeling question over 10 years ago. Many people are now confused as to what pro-choice means, especially in the GOP. I can’t tell you how many amusing conversations I have had with elected and appointed Republican officials who say “I don’t agree with you on abortion”….but when you ask more they say “Oh but I believe the woman should decide if she wants one or not….” We need to remove the confusion.

Second, we need to call the GOP’s bluff on abortion. They keep passing laws that chip away at the edges of Roe. The GOP is in the majority in both the House and the Senate and they have an anti-choice President, so why haven’t they moved on the one piece of legislation that the Republican Platform holds up as the “solution”, the so-called Human Life Amendment? Why…because the debate on such an Amendment that would outlaw abortion 100% would kill the Party. The HLA would mean women going to jail, most major forms of contraception would be outlawed and you would need a national registry of pregnant women to enforce it. Yeah that would go over well with the women of America…they get turned in and put on a national registry when they get pregnant and in nine months they better have a baby, or a way to prove they had a natural miscarriage. Yeah, that would be a real political winner for the GOP! It was a big hit when they did it in Romania!

So how do we call their bluff? I have my ideas and would love to discuss them with the other leaders in the pro-choice movement before announcing them here. We can do it but it would take a united effort. It will involve giving them some of what the anti-choice leaders in Congress think they want and watching them choke on it.

Ann E.W. Stone National Chairman,
Republicans for Choice PAC