NARAL Pro-Choice America Endorses Rep. Joe Hoeffel for Senate

(Philadelphia, PA) –NARAL Pro-Choice America, the leading national advocate for personal privacy and a woman’s right to choose, today announced its endorsement of Rep. Joe Hoeffel for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania.

Elizabeth Cavendish, Interim President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, who was in Philadelphia today to make the announcement, said,

For the last three years, pro-choice Americans faced a relentlessly anti-choice President working systematically to make good on his promise to ‘do everything in my power’ to limit a woman’s right to choose. Every step of the way, the President had a friend in Arlen Specter.

Senator Specter used his powerful position on the Judiciary Committee to play a critical role in Bush’s strategy of packing federal courts with judges from the anti-choice fringe. Just recently the Senate voted on the nomination of J. Leon Holmes – someone who has written that ‘the wife is to subordinate herself to her husband,’ claimed women can’t get pregnant from rape, and compared pro-choice advocates to “Nazis.” Moderate Republicans – even a senator from Texas – voted no. Senator Specter stuck with Bush, and cast the vote to make Holmes a federal judge for life.

In fact, Specter has not opposed even a single one of President Bush’s nominees. This record is especially troubling because Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, and those selected over the next four years will likely decide the fate of a woman’s right to choose for the next thirty years. Specter also supported abortion bans and a measure that would give fetuses legal rights, a measure anti-choice advocates will use as a building block for the overturning of Roe.

Pennsylvanians deserve a senator who will keep the government out of our private decisions, and next January, you’ll have one in Joe Hoeffel. Hoeffel is a proven leader who has worked throughout his career to protect a woman’s right to choose. He will support common sense policies like expanding access to birth control and making sure young people get responsible sex education instead of “abstinence only” classes – because those are the ways we can prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortions.

According to Joe Hoeffel, “This endorsement speaks volumes about the choice Pennsylvanians face in this Senate race. Unlike Arlen Specter, I will always stand up for a woman's right to control her own health and reproductive options that are safe, legal, and accessible. And I will not support ideological right-wing judges who have made clear their strong opposition to those rights. It’s clear we need a change in Washington, and together John Kerry, John Edwards and I will stop the Bush-Cheney-Specter assault on women’s rights. We’ll build a better future for women and for all Americans.”

Cavendish continued, “The choice is clear: Joe Hoeffel trusts women to make their own decisions. Arlen Specter wants George Bush to make those choices for women.”

Paid for and authorized by Hoeffel for Senate.

Contact:
Ted Miller, 202.973.3032