His [Romney's] campaign also released a longer clip from the same news conference: Indeed, in July 2005, a few weeks after the press conference, Mr. Romney vetoed an emergency contraception bill that would allow pharmacists to dispense the so-called morning-after pill without a prescription and require hospitals to make it available to rape victims.
He penned an op-ed for the Boston Globe to explain his decision, writing in part:
I understand that my views on laws governing abortion set me in the minority in our Commonwealth. I am pro-life. I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother. I wish the people of America agreed, and that the laws of our nation could reflect that view. But while the nation remains so divided over abortion, I believe that the states, through the democratic process, should determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate.
Contradiction? I wrote about Romney's conversion for National Journal and came away with the impression that the Harvard incident began the process, rather than ended it -- that it took time before Romney fully came to realize that the pro-life position was correct.
Also, Romney has always claimed that, even after his personal revelation, he never went back on his promise to Massachusetts voters.
Me: What McCain’s camp fails to divulge is that Romney’s defense of the “status quo” in Massachusetts was actually a win for the pro-life movement. As Luo explains, it was in response to a veto of expanding stem cell research that Romney cited his promise to Massachusetts voters about abortion. He was denying the legislature the ability to increase stem cell research and abortion rights. Romney was a foil to liberal legislation in Massachusetts, not a co-conspirator in it. As usual, McCain is wrong.
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