Romney's Emergency Contraception Flip-Flop Dismays Massachusetts Activist
by Mary Rettig
December 12, 2005
(AgapePress) - - A conservative activist in Massachusetts says he is very disappointed by Governor Mitt Romney's decision on the state's emergency contraception law. The new law, which takes effect this week, will require all hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims. Romney had originally stated that Catholic hospitals and other private hospitals could be exempt from the emergency contraception law. However, last week he announced that no hospital, whether religious or private, would be exempt.
Some kinds of emergency contraception may work by preventing implantation of an embryo in the uterus after fertilization has occurred, a process many pro-life individuals regard as tantamount to a medical abortion. Romney had planned to support a conscience clause to allow religious and private hospitals to refuse to give out emergency contraception drugs. But after a commentary criticizing his stance appeared in the Boston Globe newspaper, the Massachusetts governor did an about-face and declared that all medical facilities across the state must comply with the new law.
Brian Camenker of the pro-family group Article 8 Alliance says Romney has been markedly inconsistent in his pro-life stance. "He started out pro-life, and then he became pro-choice when he ran against Ted Kennedy for the U.S. Senate," the activist says. "When he ran for governor, he said he was the most pro-choice candidate there was in the state; and then, when he starts making speeches in South Carolina, suddenly he's changed his mind -- he's pro-life. And now this."
Romney knew very well that he did not have the votes to keep the emergency contraception bill from passing, Camenker contends, but he says the governor still vetoed the legislation as a means of political posturing and is now simply pandering to pro-abortion forces.
"I haven't heard of a big, huge problem of rape victims not getting abortion drugs or whatever in Massachusetts," the Article 8 spokesman notes. "To me, what this is, is the abortion industry doesn't want any loopholes at all, ever, for anybody, for any conscience at all; and they're going to close every door tight. And Mitt Romney is playing to that audience."
Earlier this year, the Massachusetts governor acknowledged that he is considering a run for the U.S. presidency in 2008. However, Camenker asserts, if a small editorial complaining about the emergency contraception clause in the Boston Globe is enough to get Romney to stop a conscience clause, then his bid for the Oval Office is unlikely to get far.
Mary Rettig, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
