Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report Highlights Women's Health Policy Issues Related To 2006 Elections

The following highlights recent election-related news on women's health issues.

• Connecticut: Although Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) supports abortion rights, NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut recently chose not to endorse her bid for re-election in part because of her lack of support for legislation that would require hospitals to provide rape survivors access to emergency contraception and because of the voting record of her running mate, the AP/Stamford Advocate reports. According to gubernatorial candidate John DeStefano's (D) campaign, Rell's running mate, former state Rep. Michael Fedele (R), in 1998 voted for a failed amendment to a measure that would have classified performing a late-term abortion as a class D felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut Executive Director Carolyn Treiss said that Fedele did not return the group's candidate questionnaire for the November election, adding in a statement, "It concerns us Gov. Rell did not take the issue of women's reproductive freedom into account when selecting a running mate." Rell said that Fedele supports abortion rights, adding, "A lot of people feel very strongly on the 'partial-birth' abortion, but Mike has always been pro-choice." Rell also said she is proud of her record on women's issues, including supporting legislation allowing women to stay in the hospital longer after a mastectomy and increasing access to mammograms (Haigh, AP/Stamford Advocate, 10/3).
  

• Iowa: Gubernatorial candidates Jim Nussle (R) and Chet Culver (D) on Monday during their first televised debate discussed abortion rights and human embryonic stem cell research issues, the Des Moines Register reports (Beaumont, Des Moines Register, 10/3). Nussle, a U.S. representative, last year voted against a bill (HR 810) that would have expanded federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and in July voted to sustain President Bush's veto of the measure, saying he opposes giving federal funding to research using human embryos. Culver, Iowa's secretary of state, has said if elected, he would call for the repeal of a 2002 state law that bans multiple forms of stem cell research and would call for the allocation of $10 million to create an Iowa Center for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 7/25). Culver also has said he supports abortion rights and would veto any legislation seeking to place limitations on the procedure. Campaign staff for Nussle has said he would sign a bill banning abortion in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy if elected (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 9/8). Nussle on Monday also said Iowa should approve a law requiring minors seeking abortion to obtain consent from their parents (Glover, AP/Charles City Press, 10/3). Culver said that his position on abortion rights is with the "mainstream in the state" and that Nussle's is an "extreme position." Nussle said, "I do not have an extreme position unless you believe that it's extreme to protect unborn life" (Gearino, Sioux City Journal, 10/5).
  

• Ohio: Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell (R) in a meeting before the Columbus Dispatch editorial board said medical science has advanced to the point at which choosing to save the life of a pregnant woman or aborting the fetus is "no longer the dilemma the medial profession had to deal with," the Dispatch reports. U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, who supports abortion rights and also attended the meeting, said "every physician I've talked with" has said that Blackwell's statement "is flat out wrong," adding that Blackwell has "nuanced" his position from opposing all abortions during the Republican primary to now allowing it to save the life of the pregnant woman. Blackwell said that he has not changed his position. He also said that if his daughter were raped, the "more traumatic choice for that young woman, in this case my daughter," would be to undergo an abortion rather than to carry the pregnancy to term. Strickland said, "It ought to be her choice" (Hallett/Niquette, Columbus Dispatch, 10/3).
  

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