Anti-abortion groups emerge
Three organizations challenge Oregon Right to Life, calling it too willing to compromise and splitting a normally united front

Monday, April 04, 2005

MICHELLE COLE

SALEM -- Three new anti-abortion groups are challenging Oregon Right to Life's political dominance in the Capitol, vexing Republican legislative leaders and drawing renewed attention to state-funded abortions.
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The groups, started by a handful of longtime activists, probably won't sway many votes on a number of anti-abortion bills in the 2005 Legislature. But their contention that Right to Life is not pushing hard enough to end abortion reveals a rift in the normally united lobby that could make the issue even more divisive this year than in past sessions.

In particular, the new groups oppose the $2.87 million the state will spend in the 2003-05 budget period to pay for about 4,100 abortions performed each year on women eligible for the Oregon Health Plan. They want lawmakers to promise not to vote for a budget that includes money for abortions.

Oregon Right to Life and its legislative allies say the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision prevents the state from outlawing abortion. They're focusing on what they think can be done, such as requiring parents to be notified before their daughter has an abortion.

But lined up against them are:

Oregonians for Life, started by Amy Rabon, a former state Senate aide, and Mary Starrett, a former TV and radio talk show host in Portland.

Life Support Oregon, founded by a group that includes Dave Brownlow, a 2004 Constitution Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, and Lon Mabon, former executive director of the Oregon Citizens Alliance.

Believers Against Child Killing, headed by Paul deParrie, a longtime abortion protester who says violence against doctors who perform abortions is "morally justified."

The leaders are unapologetically strident about wanting to end abortion, and they say Right to Life has been too willing to compromise on legislation to get along in the Capitol.

For example, Oregon Right to Life supports a bill sponsored by House Speaker Karen Minnis, R-Wood Village, that would allow prosecutors to bring double-murder charges against someone who kills a pregnant woman and her unborn child.

Brownlow said the new groups agree with language in the bill defining an unborn child as a human. But they cannot support other language that otherwise affirms "lawful abortion."

"We're not going to compromise anymore," Brownlow said. "We want this bill to fail."

The groups, which have testified against several Right to Life-endorsed bills, have few members and little money. But they have registered with the secretary of state as political action committees, which means they can accept and make campaign donations.

"We're going to support candidates who are truly pro-life," deParrie said.

Despite their lack of resources, they've created a stir in the Capitol.

Over the past few weeks, organizers persuaded several Republican legislators to sign a pledge that they will not vote for a budget that includes money for abortions. By late last week, however, two House members had asked to withdraw their signatures.

Sen. Gary George, R-Newberg, signed the pledge. But he said some of his House colleagues had encountered objections from Republican leaders. "People were being encouraged to consider the loss of their bills if they signed this," George said.

The House speaker's office declined to comment on the pledge or the new anti-abortion groups.

House members who had signed the pledge and then regretted it said they weren't threatened by leadership.

"I didn't want my name used as a pawn in this process or leveraged against my colleagues," said Rep. Linda Flores, R-Oregon City, who said she asked to be dropped after reading some e-mails from the groups she didn't like.

The groups also have made a push outside the Capitol. In late February, Oregonians for Life sent letters to 2,500 Oregon households notifying them that their tax dollars pay for abortions.

"People were outraged," Starrett said.

Starrett, a former board member of the Oregon Right to Life Education Foundation, blames Right to Life for not devoting more time and political clout to the state funding issue.

"I have to say I don't know what Right to Life does, and I've been part of it," she said.

Gayle Atteberry, executive director of Oregon Right to Life, said her group was instrumental in stripping abortion funding from a state budget that passed the 1999 Legislature but was vetoed by then-Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat.

Oregon Right to Life hasn't pushed the budget issue since, Atteberry said, because "you have to have the votes." Democrats gained a tie in the Senate last session and took firm control this year by picking up three seats in the fall elections.

Atteberry also takes issue with claims that Oregon Right to Life is politically ineffective.

"We're one of the more powerful PACs in the state," she said. "We're very, very successful in getting pro-lifers into the Capitol in the first place. Our first order of business is working the election process."

The Oregon Right to Life PAC spent more than $700,000 last election year. The 35-year-old group has a mailing list of 200,000 households.

Starrett said there's no question Right to Life is the "big dog" in the state's anti-abortion movement, and her group, Oregonians for Life, is a Chihuahua.

"Chihuahuas can be very irritating," she said. "And when they bite, you feel it."

Dave Hogan of The Oregonian contributed to this report. Michelle Cole: 503-294-5143; michellecole@news.oregonian.com