[Apologetics] Thompson star dims on abortion issue

Mon Jul 9 20:56:16 EDT 2007

Art,

  Can you site recent evidence that Thompson supports abortion?

  Dianne

Art Kelly <arthurkelly at yahoo.com> wrote:
  Dianne,

Of course, people can be converted. But there is no
evidence that I've seen to indicate that Thompson has
had a change of heart on abortion.

Art

--- Dianne Dawson wrote:

> Thank Art. I'm sure that the pro-abortion folks
> will chew on this for awhile. However, as is
> mentioned at the end of this article, we have to
> focus on where he is now. Remember "Roe" was
> pro-abortion at one time also. Look where she is
> now on the issue.
> 
> Dianne
> 
> Art Kelly wrote:
> 
>
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-thompson8jul08,1,6126333.story?ctrack=2&cset=true
> 
> >From the Los Angeles Times
> 
> Thompson star dims on abortion issue
> 
> Conservatives are anxious after a family-planning
> group claims that he once lobbied on its behalf
> against the so-called gag rule.
> 
> By Janet Hook
> Times Staff Writer
> 
> July 8, 2007
> 
> WASHINGTON — Republican political activists said
> Saturday that reports that Fred D. Thompson had
> lobbied to ease a controversial abortion restriction
> have cast a shadow on his effort to persuade social
> conservatives — a key constituency in his emerging
> bid
> for the White House — that he is an unwavering
> opponent of abortion.
> 
> Some Republican activists urged caution in
> evaluating
> Thompson's record. Others considered it damaging for
> questions to arise about his position on abortion, a
> litmus-test issue for many social conservatives. 
> 
> "That would not be helpful," said Paul M. Weyrich, a
> conservative leader who has not endorsed a
> presidential candidate.
> 
> Evidence that Thompson worked for a family-planning
> group in 1991 as part of his little-known but
> extensive portfolio as a part-time lobbyist
> underscores how much the public has yet to learn
> about
> the former senator, who is best known for acting in
> movies and on TV, especially his role as a district
> attorney on the popular show "Law & Order." 
> 
> The article in Saturday's Los Angeles Times cited
> records and the accounts of several people
> associated
> with the issue. It also said Thompson's spokesman
> strongly denied Thompson had performed such lobbying
> work.
> 
> Some conservatives said the lobbying claims added to
> anxieties. Though the GOP has been unwavering in its
> opposition to abortion at least since President
> Reagan, the positions of its presidential
> front-runners appear to be less unequivocal.
> 
> Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani supports
> abortion rights. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt
> Romney
> is a recent convert to opposing abortion rights.
> Sen.
> John McCain (R-Ariz.) opposes abortion but has never
> made that a central issue in his career.
> 
> "With all the people who keep changing their minds
> on
> abortion, that's got to be unsettling," Weyrich
> said.
> 
> The result is a GOP abortion debate lacking one
> thing
> that activists on both sides of the issue long for:
> certitude. 
> 
> "People want to see clarity and consistency on this
> issue," said Ted Miller, spokesman for NARAL
> Pro-Choice America, which supports abortion rights. 
> 
> A big question for Thompson, who is expected to
> declare his candidacy in the next week or two, is
> whether this will disillusion Republicans who have
> seen him as a white knight to rescue the party from
> candidates unpalatable to many conservatives.
> 
> "This will hurt, particularly because conservatives
> have been dying for a champion to be in the arena
> for
> them," said David Carney, a New Hampshire-based GOP
> strategist who is not aligned with any candidate. "A
> lot hoped he was the guy
. People who really believe
> in the pro-life cause will not be happy." 
> 
> As a Tennessee senator from December 1994 to January
> 2003, Thompson sided with antiabortion advocates on
> most key issues. That record has been a big reason
> conservatives have looked to him as an alternative
> to
> established GOP candidates. 
> 
> But some critics have pointed to statements he made
> before becoming senator to suggest that he was
> sympathetic to abortion rights. Thompson has said
> that
> those statements were misconstrued and that he has
> become even more passionate in his abortion
> opposition
> since seeing the sonogram of his now-3-year-old
> daughter.
> 
> In 1991, according to several people then affiliated
> with the National Family Planning and Reproductive
> Health Assn., he accepted an assignment from the
> association to lobby the White House to withdraw or
> relax a "gag rule" that barred abortion counseling
> at
> clinics that received federal money.
> 
> The minutes of a 1991 meeting — given to The Times —
> say the association's president reported to the
> board
> that the association had hired him. And a Democratic
> colleague of Thompson's at the lobbying and law firm
> also recalled Thompson having worked for the
> association. 
> 
> Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo has adamantly denied
> that Thompson worked for the group. And the White
> House official whom the group was seeking to reach,
> then-Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, said Thompson
> didn't lobby him.
> 
> Some Republicans argued that the account was
> politically motivated, noting it came from
> abortion-rights advocates with little affection for
> the GOP.
> 
> Thompson's GOP rivals in the presidential contest
> seized on the account but declined to comment for
> the
> record.
> 
> "Each day that gets closer to Fred Thompson's
> announcement as a candidate, we learn new
> information
> about his record and his career that shows he
> doesn't
> have the conservative credentials that primary
> voters
> are looking for," said a strategist for a rival.
> 
> However, a leading backer of Romney is more
> forgiving.
> Romney is himself asking voters to pay more
> attention
> to his current abortion opposition than to his past
> record.
> 
> Thompson "had a change of heart on the abortion
> issue," said James Bopp Jr., an antiabortion leader.
> "This story is about something that happened in
> 1991.
> He's walked through the burning embers, and there is
> no reason to think his change of heart was not
> sincere." 
> 
> Anne Hendershott, author of "The Politics of
> Abortion," said the report would probably not hurt
> Thompson if antiabortion activists were pragmatic
> and
> focused on where he stood now, not on the position
> of
> a group he might have worked for 16 years ago: "Fred
> Thompson says he is pro-life now, and that is what
> is
> important to the pro-lifers." 
> 
> But the account is also a reminder that, although
> Thompson is positioning himself to run as an
> anti-establishment outsider, his resume is that of a
> consummate Washington insider.
> 
> "He wasn't the conservative firebrand some are
> making
> him out to be now," Carney said.
> 
> 
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> janet.hook at latimes.com
> 
> --
> 
> Times staff writer Mark Barabak contributed to this
> report.
> 
> 
>
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-thompson7jul07,1,1358124.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
> 
> >From the Los Angeles Times
> 
> Thompson lobbied for abortion-rights group, it says
> 
> A spokesman for the GOP presidential hopeful says he
> did no such work. An ex-colleague calls the denial
> 'bizarre.
> '
> By Michael Finnegan
> Times Staff Writer
> 
> July 7, 2007
> 
> Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president
> as
> an antiabortion Republican, accepted an assignment
> from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush
> White House to ease a controversial abortion
> restriction, according to a 1991 document and
> several
> people familiar with the matter. 
> 
> A spokesman for the former Tennessee senator denied
> that Thompson did the lobbying work. But the minutes
> of a 1991 board meeting of the National Family
> Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. say that the
> group hired Thompson that year.
> 
> His task was to urge the administration of President
> George H. W. Bush to withdraw or relax a rule that
> barred abortion counseling at clinics that received
> federal money, according to the records and to
> people
> who worked on the matter.
> 
> The abortion "gag rule" was then a major political
> flashpoint. Lobbying against the rule would have
> placed Thompson at odds with the antiabortion
> movement
> that he is now trying to rally behind his expected
> declaration of a presidential bid. 
> 
> Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo adamantly denied
> that
> Thompson worked for the family planning group. "Fred
> Thompson did not lobby for this group, period," he
> said in an e-mail. 
> 
> In a telephone interview, he added: "There's no
> documents to prove it, there's no billing records,
> and
> Thompson says he has no recollection of it, says it
> didn't happen." In a separate interview, John H.
> Sununu, the White House official whom the family
> planning group wanted to contact, said he had no
> memory of the lobbying and doubted it took place.
> 
> But Judith DeSarno, who was president of the family
> planning association in 1991, said Thompson lobbied
> for the group for several months.
> 
> Minutes from the board's meeting of Sept. 14, 1991 —
> a
> copy of which DeSarno gave to The Times — say: "Judy
> [DeSarno] reported that the association had hired
> Fred
> Thompson Esq. as counsel to aid us in discussions
> with
> the administration" on the abortion counseling rule.
> 
> Former Rep. Michael D. Barnes (D-Md.), a colleague
> at
> the lobbying and law firm where Thompson worked,
> said
> that DeSarno had asked him to recommend someone for
> the lobbying work and that he had suggested
> Thompson.
> He said it was "absolutely bizarre" for Thompson to
> deny that he lobbied against the abortion counseling
> rule.
> 
> "I talked to him while he was doing it, and I talked
> to [DeSarno] about the fact that she was very
> pleased
> with the work that he was doing for her
> organization,"
> said Barnes. "I have strong, total recollection of
> that. This is not something I dreamed up or she
> dreamed up. This is fact."
> 
> DeSarno said that Thompson, after being hired,
> reported to her that he had held multiple
> conversations about the abortion rule with Sununu,
> who
> was then the White House chief of staff and the
> president's point man on the rule.
> 
> Thompson kept her updated on his progress in
> telephone
> conversations and over meals at Washington
> restaurants, including dinner at Galileo and lunch
> at
> the Monocle, she said. At one of the meals, she
> recalled, Thompson told her that Sununu had just
> given
> him tickets for a VIP tour of the White House for a
> Thompson son and his wife.
> 
> "It would be an odd thing for me to construct that
> thing out of whole cloth," DeSarno said. "It
> happened,
> and I think it's quite astonishing they're denying
> it."
> 
> Sununu said in a telephone interview: "I don't
> recall
> him ever lobbying me on that at all. I don't think
> that ever happened. In fact, I know that never
> happened." He added that he had "absolutely no idea"
> whether Thompson had met with anybody else at the
> White House, but said it would have been a waste of
> time, given the president's opposition to abortion
> rights.
> 
> In response to Sununu's denial, DeSarno said
> Thompson
> "owes NFPRHA a bunch of money" if he never talked to
> Sununu as he said he had.
> 
> At the time, Thompson was a lobbyist and lawyer "of
> counsel" to the Washington firm of Arent Fox Kintner
> Plotkin & Kahn.
> 
> DeSarno said the family planning association paid
> the
> firm for Thompson's work. Marc L. Fleischaker,
> chairman of Arent Fox, declined to comment.
> 
> Corallo, the spokesman for Thompson, was asked
> Friday
> about the board minutes and the five people who said
> they recalled Thompson accepting the lobbying
> assignment. He responded in an e-mail, saying that
> Thompson "may have been consulted by one of [his]
> firm's partners who represented this group in 1991."
> 
> Corallo said it was "not unusual for one lawyer on
> one
> side of an issue to be asked to give advice to
> colleagues for clients who engage in conduct or
> activities with which they personally disagree."
> 
> Any work that Thompson did to challenge the abortion
> rule could complicate his appeals to conservatives
> in
> the contest for the Republican presidential
> nomination. He reportedly plans to join the race
> this
> month.
> 
> For weeks, Thompson has tried to pick up support
> from
> religious conservatives dissatisfied with the top
> GOP
> White House contenders, some of whom have backed
> abortion rights. In a videotaped message to the
> National Right to Life Convention in Kansas City
> last
> month, Thompson said the group's issues were "ever
> more profound to me as the years go by."
> 
> A senator from December 1994 to January 2003,
> Thompson
> voted along antiabortion lines, but his statements
> have occasionally raised questions about his
> attitude
> toward the cause.
> 
> On Fox News last month, he was asked why he checked
> a
> box on a questionnaire in his 1994 Senate campaign
> beside a statement saying that abortion "should be
> legal in all circumstances for the first three
> months."
> 
> "I don't remember that box," Thompson replied. "You
> know, it was a long time ago, and I don't know if I
> filled it out or my staff, based on what they
> thought
> my position was, filled it out."
> 
> The Tennessean newspaper reported that Thompson,
> when
> filling out a 1996 Christian Coalition survey,
> marked
> himself as "opposed" to a constitutional amendment
> protecting "the sanctity of human life." 
> 
> The newspaper said he included a handwritten
> notation
> saying: "I do not believe abortion should be
> criminalized. This battle will be won in the hearts
> and souls of the American people."
> 
> In recent weeks, Thompson has described himself as
> fundamentally "pro-life," saying the issue has
> "meant
> a little more to me" since seeing the sonogram of
> his
> now-3-year-old daughter.
> 
> Best known for playing a district attorney on NBC's
> "Law and Order," Thompson worked as a part-time
> lobbyist over nearly three decades, both before and
> after his Senate service. His clients included a
> General Electric aircraft-engine maker, Westinghouse
> Electric Corp. and the Equitas insurance company.
> 
> DeSarno and others said the family planning group
> hired Thompson shortly after the Supreme Court
> upheld
> the "gag rule" in 1991. 
> 
> That ruling led to a protracted tussle between Bush
> and Congress. The rule was eliminated in 1993 by
> President Clinton on his third day in office.
> 
> In addition to Barnes and DeSarno, three other
> people
> said they recalled Thompson lobbying against the
> rule
> on behalf of the family planning association.
> 
> Susan Cohen, a member of the association's board of
> directors in 1991, said in reference to DeSarno and
> Thompson: "We were looking, of course, for a
> Republican who might have some inroads to the White
> House at that time, and so that's how she came upon
> contacting him." 
> 
> Said Bill Hamilton, who then directed the Washington
> office of the Planned Parenthood Federation of
> America, a group that was DeSarno's main ally in
> lobbying on the abortion counseling rule: "I
> definitely recall her reaching out to [Thompson] and
> engaging him in some way, and trying to squeeze the
> White House through him." 
> 
> Sarah L. Szanton, who worked for DeSarno as director
> of government relations for the family planning
> association, agreed that Thompson "consulted on our
> behalf against the gag rule."
> 
> "I remember that he did it," Szanton said. "I just
> knew he was part of the good fight."
> 
> The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health
> Assn. is a Washington nonprofit organization that
> represents family planning clinics and other groups.
> It advocates "reproductive freedom" and broad access
> to birth control.
> 
> 
> 
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> michael.finnegan at latimes.com
> 
> 
> ART KELLY, ATM-S
> 13524 Brightfield Lane
> Herndon, Virginia 20171-3360
> (703) 904-3763 home
> (703) 396-6956 work
> arthurkelly at yahoo.com
> art.kelly at cox.net
> ArtK135 at Netscape.net
> 
> 
>
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> Like a deer that longs for running waters so my soul
> longs for you, O God.
> 
> Ps 42:1
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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ART KELLY, ATM-S
13524 Brightfield Lane
Herndon, Virginia 20171-3360
(703) 904-3763 home
(703) 396-6956 work
arthurkelly at yahoo.com
art.kelly at cox.net
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