Finally, pro-life and pro-choice leaders have found a point of agreement: Nobody in the abortion argument likes John McCain. The pro-choice camp finds him too opposed to abortion; the pro-life camp finds him too willing to make exceptions.

McCain’s campaign website notes that the candidate “believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, returning the abortion question to the individual states.” A quote from McCain calls abortion “a human tragedy.” There are no mentions in the campaign literature of exceptions to the pro-life position. At the beginning of his presidential bid, however, McCain repeatedly and publicly urged Republicans to change the party’s pro-life platform, calling for explicit exceptions in the case of rape, incest, and the life of the mother. He also supports some forms of embryonic stem cell research.

Nancy Keenan, a prominent pro-choice spokeswoman, told NPR she considers McCain a “very, very extreme” pro-lifer. “He voted against family planning, he voted against the freedom of access to clinic entrances—that was about violence against women in clinics,” she said. “He voted against funding teen pregnancy-prevention programs, and making sure that abstinence-only was medically accurate.”

Still, McCain scored well with pro-choice Republicans this primary season, something Keenan explains by McCain’s “moderate maverick image.” But his record, she says, “shows that this is a guy who’s been very anti-choice since he entered the U.S. House of Representatives back in 1983.”

On the other side of the tracks, the pro-life movement isn’t much happier with McCain. Some of the tension stems from the McCain-Feingold Act, which the National Right to Life Committee saw as a “major hindrance to its mission of pro-life advocacy.”

Conservative commentary from World Net Daily recalled McCain’s “surly pro-abortion side” from a 2000 debate with Alan Keyes and George W. Bush. After McCain admitted he would leave an abortion decision up to his daughter if she were faced with such a situation, Keyes retorted, “How on earth can you represent a party that would take away from every other American woman what you would give to your own daughter?”

Perhaps that question still stands.

UPDATE:

Despite some pro-life discomfort with McCain’s record and reliability, on Thursday the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) informed WoW of their strong support for the presumptive Republican nominee, making it clear that the pro-life community has more than one opinion on the matter:

Even while National Right to Life disagreed with Sen. McCain on campaign finance reform, Sen. McCain did not waver on his votes against abortion.

Sen. John McCain has a solid voting record against abortion and has cast 31 pro-life votes since 1997. This includes voting to uphold the Mexico City Policy which prevents International Planned Parenthood from receiving our tax dollars. He has also voted against endorsing Roe v. Wade and believes it should be overturned. In addition he voted to confirm Justices Alito and Roberts. National Right to Life is grateful for these votes.

This support could help McCain to balance out the endorsement he rejected this week from pastor John Hagee. A prominent conservative pro-Israel and pro-life leader, Hagee came under heavy fire in the press last week for several comments on the Holocaust. McCain called the statements “deeply offensive and indefensible,” and rejected the pastor’s four-month-old endorsement. Hagee responded that the criticisms resulted from “intentional mischaracterization” of his statements, and decided to rescind his endorsement.

If Planned Parenthood’s political schemes go according to plan, a pro-abortion candidate will rally to presidential victory in November 2008. Working through Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the world’s largest provider of abortions hopes to bring one million voters to the polls this fall.

Aside from securing a pro-abortion president and one million new abortion activists, the “One Million Strong Campaign” aspires to win key Senate, Congressional and legislative seats on Election Day 2008, creating ideal conditions for the passage of pro-abortion legislation in the future.

In a Jan. 22 press release, Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, explained that the organization’s venture into the political arena will ensure that women in America continue to receive valuable information and health services.

“Under President Bush, women have seen access to basic health care like birth control become increasingly unaffordable and inaccessible. . . . And they’ve now seen the White House and the state governments pour more than $1.5 billion into ineffective and dangerous abstinence-until-marriage programs that do nothing to prevent unintended pregnancies,” Richards said in the press release.

Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League, believes the organization’s campaign may falter. “Planned Parenthood has a bad name around the nation,” Sedlak told WoW. “They raise opposition among both pro-abortion and pro-life supporters and, in our opinion, their support of candidates will not be positive.”

Because of its tax-exempt status, Planned Parenthood is prohibited from endorsing a candidate or being involved in political action. Sedlak said that Planned Parenthood often skirts legality during its political ventures rather than leaving campaign work solely to its Action Fund.

“If Planned Parenthood starts putting up signs in clinics, we will file complaints with the IRS to make sure their tax-exempt status is removed,” Sedlak said. “If I was a candidate and I was getting an endorsement from Planned Parenthood, I would be worried.”

The abortion debate promises to heat up as pro-life groups introduce new ballot initiatives to define “personhood” as starting from the moment of conception.

Members of Colorado for Equal Rights are trying to amend the state constitution. “This is not criminal legislation. It’s not going to make anything illegal,” Kristi Burton, the co-sponsor of the initiative, told WoW. “It’s just going to define person—put the definition of person in our constitution.”

The Colorado Supreme Court recently voted to approve the language of Burton’s petition. The court’s ruling does not endorse the petition but merely says that it is technically correct—a decision that allows Burton’s group to collect the 76,000 signatures necessary to get the initiative on the ballot.

Groups in Oregon, Montana and Georgia are introducing similar initiatives and legislation that explicitly intends to end abortion by establishing the legal personhood of an unborn child.

This move is critical to challenging the fundamental holding of Roe v. Wade that the14^th Amendment does not extend to the unborn. In the Roe. V. Wade opinion, the Supreme Court itself acknowledged that abortion rights would “collapse” if the personhood of a fetus could be established because “the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.”

Robert Muise, an attorney with the Thomas More Law Center, is handling a lawsuit against the Oregon Secretary of State and Attorney General for denying the request of an individual who wanted to circulate the initiative.

Muise told WoW if any of the groups are successful, it will prompt a court battle: “The first time someone tries to say the homicide laws apply to abortion, someone will run to the federal level. In my view, bring it on…You’ll never have a meaningful restriction on abortion so long as Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land.”

There is the question, however, of whether pro-lifers will win that court battle. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals just made a distinction between fetus-murder and abortion, ruling that a similar Texas law does not conflict with Roe v. Wade.