THE PRINCIPLED LEFT:

Pro-Life Progressive No More: The strange journey of Dennis Kucinich. (Timothy P. Carney, Novermber 1, 2002, National Review)

In the Ohio state Senate, Kucinich voted to ban partial-birth abortions. In 1996, while running for U.S. House, the former "boy-mayor" of Cleveland said, "I believe that life begins at conception." When Kucinich was coming to Washington, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy counted the former mayor as one of a handful of "anti-choice" Democratic newcomers.

Upon arriving in our nation's capital, the Cleveland Catholic lived up to his billing. In the 105th Congress, Kucinich - no conservative - earned a 90 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee. His only heresies in the eyes of these abortion foes being his support of the Shays-Meehan campaign-finance bill.

That's correct: This left-wing congressmen voted with the National Right to Life Committee on every single abortion vote in his first two years. That was more pro-life than three Ohio Republicans that year. The votes included sticking up for a ban on partial-birth abortion and voting to thwart President Clinton's plan to give foreign aid to overseas agencies that perform and counsel abortion.

For the next two years, the story was the same. Kucinich voted again to ban partial-birth abortion, block aid to International Planned Parenthood, and prevent taxpayer dollars from funding abortions in federal prisons. His score in the 106th Congress with the National Right to Life Committee was 95 percent - again, only voting against them on Shays-Meehan.

The 10th district Democrat even towed the pro-life line during the first year of the Bush administration. In April, Kucinich supported the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act," which criminalized harming a fetus in a crime, and he opposed the Democratic substitute that would have defused the fetus-is-a-life parts of the bill.

In May, 2001, Kucinich again voted against funding International Planned Parenthood. Two months later he voted to block federal funding of prison abortions. On the cloning ban, the congressman voted the straight pro-life line, supporting the bill and opposing his party's efforts to soften the ban.

On September 25, 2001, Kucinich helped kill a measure by California Democrat Loretta Sanchez that would have allowed for federal funding of abortions in overseas U.S. military bases.

But then something happened.

There's no surer sign that a Democrat is running for president than that they renounce their belief that a fetus is a human life, as did both Richard Gephardt and Al Gore before they first ran in 1988. Looks like Mr. Kucinich is willing to offer up the sacrifice too.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 2, 2002 1:33 PM