Catholics United today unveiled a new ad campaign encouraging Senator John McCain to embrace a broad pro-life agenda including support for health care and effective assistance to pregnant women, children, and families. The ad – which will run on cable television in heavily Catholic areas of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan – comes as Catholic and other religious groups are calling for a national abortion dialogue that prioritizes effective and common good solutions over political rhetoric.
The thirty-second spot features a Catholic pro-life mother of three from the Midwest who states that “actions speak louder than words” when it comes to a pro-life record. She proceeds to cite Senator McCain’s August 2007 vote against the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and support of the Iraq War as examples of actions inconsistent authentic pro-life policy.
“Many Americans, particularly Catholic Americans, are fed up leaders who use the ‘pro-life’ label to score political pointsout delivering real results,” said Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United. “‘Pro-life’ is more than just a campaign slogan. It’s a broad and deep call to defend human life at all stages, and especially to implement social and economic assistance for women and families. These are effective policies to reduce the number of abortions that Americans across the political spectrum can support.”
Even as the Republican Party abandoned proposed platform language last month aimed at embracing bipartisan solutions to the abortion tragedy, a Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good study showed a clear connection between increased economic supports for women, children, and families and lower abortion rates. Catholics United also released a study showing that allowing states to criminalize abortion – as would happen in a post-Roe v. Wade America – would have little effect on the abortion rate.
Starting Friday, September 19th, the ad will run in limited markets for seven days on major news networks, and on networks high percentages of women viewers. Catholics United plans an expanded ad buy beginning in early October.
Ad Script:
“I'm a mother of three children and I am pro-life. John McCain, it's not enough to say you're pro-life. Actions speak louder than words. You voted against one of the largest support programs for pregnant women. You voted against health care for our children. And you voted for a war that has killed thousands of Americans. Senator McCain, when will you start defending all human life,out exception?”
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