Date
|
Name(s)
|
Party
|
Office
|
Stated Position
|
Betrayal
|
Comments
|
March 21, 2010
|
Bart Stupak
|
Democrat
|
Congressman (MI)
|
- Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record.[1]
- Rated 100% by the NRLC, indicating a pro-life stance. [2]
|
Stupak abandoned his position and betrayed the trust of the American people by allowing the passage of Obamacare, which pays for at-will abortions with Federal funds. [3]
|
Within 20 days of his betrayal, Stupak announced his surprise retirement from Congress.
|
May 21, 2003
|
Dennis Kucinich
|
Democrat
|
Congressman (OH)
|
Rated 95% Pro-life in his 1st three-terms as Congressman by the National Right to Life Committee in 2000.
|
Kucinich abandoned his position when he decided to run for President. He would give a campaign speech, "as president, I would protect that right [to abortion], and I would also make sure that appointees to the Supreme Court protected that right."
|
He never received more than 3% of the vote, ranked last.
|
1996
|
Richard Durbin
|
Democrat
|
Senator (IL)
|
As a Congressman he was the speaker at the annual right-to-life rally, "I believe we should end abortion on demand, and at every opportunity, I have translated this belief into votes in the House of Representatives," "I continue to believe the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade should be reversed." [4]
|
When running as a Senator he changed his position to pro-abortion saying, "And I finally came to the conclusion that we really have to try to honor the Roe vs. Wade thinking, that there are certain times in the life of a woman that she needs to make that decision with her doctor, with her family and with her conscience and that the government shouldn't be intruding."
|
Votes for Obamacare whereby the government intrudes in everyones health issues. Rated 100% by NARAL in 2003
|
June 1992
|
Sandra Day O'Connor
|
Republican
|
Supreme Court Justice
|
When Ronald Reagan nominated her for the Supreme Court, O'Connor would tell him that "she was personally opposed to abortions." [5] It was known she sided with a 1973 bill permitting Arizona state agencies to participate in family planning. Her coy response to the White House was "she opposed the anti-abortion measure only because it was not germane to the legislation to which it was attached."
|
She called the infamous Roe v. Wade decision "a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce," and "Our obligation is to define the liberty of all. We reaffirm the constitutionally protected liberty of women to obtain an abortion." In addition, she also cast the deciding vote in the 2000 court case that overturned a Nebraska ban on Partial birth abortions.
|
Per the National Abortion Federation, "O'Connor's single vote in support of a woman's right to choose ensured the survival of Roe v. Wade."
|
1992
|
Richard S. Williamson
|
Republican
|
nominee for U.S. Senate for Illinois
|
signed a pro-life pledge during the campaign
|
disavowed his pledge once Carol Moseley Braun became his opponent, whom he hoped to defeat by becoming pro-choice
|
lost in a landslide after his duplicity was exposed; Pro-life Peter Fitzgerald then defeated Moseley Braun the next time
|
July 6, 1990
|
Buddy Roemer
|
Democrat[6]
|
Louisiana Governor
|
"we've had a betrayal by a governor who has been on the record as pro-life" [7]
|
vetoed a pro-life bill passed by overwhelming majorities in the legislature
|
the legislature overrode his veto; Roemer was defeated for reelection and could never win an election again
|
1988
|
Jesse Jackson
|
Democrat
|
presidential candidate
|
Op-ed 1,000-word essay for the National Right to Life News 1977."What happens to the moral fabric of a nation that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience," and "Those advocates of taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human. Rather they talk about aborting the fetus. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified." [8]
|
Jackson now believes abortion is acceptable because "it is not right to impose private, religious and moral positions on public policy," and "Women must have freedom of choice over what to do over their bodies."
|
Born to a single mother, he identified himself as a person who would have been aborted if medical counsel had been followed.
|
1986 [9]
|
Richard Gephardt
|
Democrat
|
Congressman (MO)
|
His first term in Congress, Gephardt voted pro-life 96 percent of the time. By his third term is was down to 64%. By 1989 it was down to 11%. He changed his position to saying that he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would preserve Roe v. Wade.
|
Gephardt told the pro-abortion group NARAL that his Baptist upbringing taught him abortion was wrong but, over time, friends and colleagues were able to convince him otherwise, "There is nothing moral in strong-arming a personal belief, and there is nothing moral to a presidency that imposes personal morality through acts of government power."
|
He would run for President in 1988 but his pro-abortion switch contributed to an unflattering view of him as a political opportunist without firm principles.
|
1980's
|
Edward Kennedy
|
Democrat
|
Senator (MA)
|
Kennedy began his political career opposed to abortion rights, writing in 1971 that "Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized." In April 1976, he would vote for a joint Senate resolution to define personhood as beginning at conception.
|
Sometime in the 1980's he would switch to pro-abortion and was often awarded a 100% positive rating from NARAL. In 1987 during the Supreme Court hearing of nominee Robert Bork, Kennedy assailed Bork as a jurist whose rulings would force women to resort to "back-alley abortions." March 12, 2003, he voted against banning partial-birth abortion. [10]
|
Died of brain cancer while still in office; his seat was then won by a Republican who campaigned against Kennedy's policies.
|