NARAL Pro-Choice America is planning to increase its political activity in the 2004 presidential election campaign and to stay a key player in the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination process. To this end, the group has hired veteran Democratic operative Michael Meehan to oversee its expanded soft-money fundraising operation, according to Roll Call (May 8, 2003). Mr. Meehan was a top political adviser to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD). (NARAL Pro-Choice America was previously known as the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, or just NARAL.)

The top priority for the organization will be the presidential race. Currently there are nine contenders for the Democratic nomination, all of whom are pro-abortion. It will also target high profile Senate races.

In related action, the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation began a $3 million advertising campaign in early June to warn Americans about the possibility that the Supreme Court’s abortion decisions could be overturned. The ads are planned to air nationally on cable channels and over the air initially in three states (not Virginia).

According to the Associated Press, one ad begins with ominous music and a woman with a horrified expression reading a fictitious newspaper headline saying, “Court overturns right to choose.” It ends saying, “there’s still time to protect your right to choose.”

Another 15-second version of the add ends by saying, “We’re one Supreme Court justice away from losing our most basic freedom. Protect your right to choose.”

[Editor’s comment: How many of our Founding Fathers, do you suppose, would have considered our most basic freedom the right of a woman to kill her own baby? One wonders if this ad campaign won’t just demonstrate how extreme the abortion proponents really are.]

Published in VSHL Lifesaver, June 2003