WASHINGTON - This week's Weekly Standard reports that the John Kerry presidential campaign has accepted contributions from the nation's three most prominent practitioners of late abortions, including the abortionist most closely associated with the partial-birth abortion method. The report examines what this connection reveals about Kerry's real positions on abortion-related policy issues.

The details are found in "Blood Brothers: Why the leading practitioners of late abortion wrote checks to Kerry," by Douglas Johnson, which is posted on the Weekly Standard website at www.weeklystandard.com . Additional documentation is linked through the National Right to Life website at www.nrlc.org.

Mr. Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), commented on the article, "It appears that the nation's most prominent practitioners of late abortions looked at John Kerry's record and they liked what they found."

The article examines why Drs. Martin Haskell, George Tiller, and Warren Hern would consider Kerry to be a candidate worthy of their support. Haskell was the author of a 1992 instructional paper that touched off the national debate over partial-birth abortion, while "Tiller and Hern may be the only two abortionists in the United States who openly advertise their willingness to perform third-trimester abortions." In public statements this year, Kerry has said that he is personally opposed to abortion, believes human life begins at conception, wants abortion to be "rare," and is "against partial-birth abortion." But, Johnson writes, "why should they [the abortionists] be bothered by statements intended only to mislead voters who are strongly opposed to the grisly business that these men are in? . . . Doctors Haskell, Tiller, and Hern know their man."

The abortionists are no doubt aware that during his 20 years in the U.S. Senate, Kerry has been "an absolutely consistent defender of abortion," who has voted against restricting partial-birth abortion every chance he got; supports allowing abortion even after "viability" for emotional health reasons; and vows to appoint only defenders of abortion to the Supreme Court -- all positions protective of the practices of the three contributors, Johnson writes. In a July interview, Kerry said he embraced "the standard that Bill Clinton, in fact, so adeptly framed, that abortion should be rare, but legal and safe." But Johnson notes that Kerry's actual record supports abortion as an integral component of all population control and general health programs. "Abortions need to be moved out of the fringes of medicine and into the mainstream of medical practice," Kerry said in 1994.

National Right to Life is the nation's largest pro-life organization with 50 state affiliates and approximately 3,000 local affiliates nationwide. NRLC works through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and assisted suicide.

VSHL is the Virginia affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee.