Hard Line Anti-choice Group ‘Going Rogue’ on Palin

After attacking James Dobson and Mitt Romney for not being anti-abortion enough, American Right to Life has set its sights on a new high profile target: ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

The Denver-based group launched Prolife Profiles.com,
a new Web site promising a rogues’ gallery of conservative icons ranked by
their public commitment to promoting "personhood" laws — the latest
scheme to challenge abortion, contraception, stem cell research and in vitro fertilization
in one fell swoop by awarding civil right protections to zygotes.

Describing the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate as
"a candidate whom many pro-lifers want to support, her actual abortion
record and rhetoric is shocking to the conscience." ARTL proceeds to whack
Palin over 17 bullet pointed, heavily footnoted and repetitive complaints about
her lack of anti-choice street cred.

And a veritable cornucopia of personhood movement slights it
is with references to all the standard abolitionist, Holocaust, creationist and
God-given rights imagery they can summon.

The critique basically boils down to not opposing
contraception or abortion in absolute terms with no exceptions, appointing an
Alaska Supreme Court justice who once served on Planned Parenthood’s board and
palling around with Sen. John McCain.

Though it seems like Palin’s biggest failing was not
bringing her right wing star power to the state or national personhood
amendments publicity campaign while she stumped with McCain to become leader of
the free world in waiting.

So confident in its sourcing, the Web site offers a cool
$100 and a public acknowledgement to anyone who can refute their research.
Typos, errant links and errors of omission don’t count, however.

This isn’t the first time ARTL has picked a fight with a
conservative standard bearer for not drawing an absolute line in the sand.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney got a big dose of ARTL
stink eye in 2008. The group claims to have derailed Romney’s presidential
primary campaign
with a series of ads and an email crusade denouncing him
for lying about his commitment to the cause and urging Christian conservatives
to support other candidates.

But as Right Wing Watch astutely notes, "claiming
credit for Romney’s losses is somewhat analogous to the American Family
Association’s constant boasting that its anti-gay boycott is the cause of the
Ford Motor Company’s rust-belt woes."

The group promises more exposés on anti-choice weaklings
Libertarian-esque 2008 presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, controversial
pundit Ann Coulter, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, Supreme Court Chief Justice John
Roberts and conservative justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito.

But the granddaddy of ARTL actions that launched the group
into the national spotlight was spurred by national anti-choice groups praising
the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding restrictions on late-term
abortion.

And with it the group published its first salvo in the war
between the absolutist faction and the more establishment incrementalists who
favor stacking Congress and the courts with a reproductive choice foes.

The "Open Letter to James Dobson" published
as full page newspaper ads in the Washington Times and the Colorado Springs
Gazette attacked the Focus on the Family founder for embracing "moral
relativism" — serious fightin’ words in fundamentalist evangelical
circles.

Radio talk show host and Denver Bible Church pastor Bob
Enyart signed the letter along with Colorado Right to Life president Brian
Rohrbough, Operation Save America director Flip Benham, Human Life
International president Rev. Tom Euteneuer and Judie Brown, the president of
American Life League.

Coincidentally, the anti-Dobson letter signatories are the
only ones listed as top tier defenders of personhood on ARTL’s self-produced ProLife
Profiles. Circular back scratch, anyone?