Angered NARAL Affiliates Speak Out for Hillary Clinton

NARAL Pro-Choice America announced its endorsement of Barack Obama yesterday, but Katharine Seelye in the Caucus (NY Times) reports the following affiliates have issued statements saying they were not consulted in the decision and would remain neutral in the Democratic primary: Oregon (which holds its primary next week), New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Texas, and Washington state.

According to Seelye, many of NARAL's affiliates said that Senator Hillary Clinton, the first woman with a plausible chance of becoming president, has as good — if not a better — record on reproductive rights than Mr. Obama.

Seelye reported that New York, which Clinton represents in the U.S. Senate, issued a statement saying: “Naral Pro-Choice New York believes that this endorsement in the Democratic primary is premature. We are fortunate to have two pro-choice candidates in Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. When a nominee is named, Naral Pro-Choice New York will stand proudly with the pro-choice Democratic candidate in order to defeat anti-choice Republican candidate John McCain in November.”

Seelye also reported the Missouri affiliate was so angered by the decision, according to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, that it sent out 8,500 robo-calls declaring its neutrality. The Dispatch article quoted Pamela Sumners, the affiliate’s executive director, “In our membership demographic, a lot of longtime women’s rights supporters are strong supporters of Hillary Clinton. If we had been consulted, we would have said, Let this play out. We have two strong pro-choice candidates in Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.”