Federal Judiciary

Rape, She Cried -- By: Kathryn Jean Lopez

When desperate, cry rape.

That?s one of the current strategies for the Martha Coakley campaign, which never expected to be running a real race for Ted Kennedy?s Senate seat the Massachusetts Senate seat long occupied by the late Ted Kennedy.

During the final debate on Monday night, and in an ad on Tuesday, Martha Coakley tried to frame her opponent, Scott Brown, as lacking empathy for rape victims. She did this by insisting that he would keep rape victims from emergency contraception at Massachusetts hospitals. ?Brown even favors letting hospitals deny emergency contraception to rape victims,? her ad proclaimed. (Denying emergency contraception does not necessarily suggest a lack of empathy, by the way. But that?s a conversation for another day.)

What Coakley and her campaign are referencing is a 2005 bill that mandated that hospitals provide emergency contraception to victims of rape. At the time, Scott Brown sponsored an amendment that sought to protect the consciences of hospitals and hospital personnel with religious objections to the medication, which sometimes works as an abortifacient.

As the Boston Globe explained last week, the amendment would have referred rape victims at a hospital that would not dispense emergency contraception to another hospital that would, at no additional cost. In an urban center like Boston, this is not akin to making emergency contraception unavailable to these women.

Brown?s amendment was defeated. And he went on to vote for the final bill#...#which required hospitals to provide emergency contraception. Mitt Romney, governor at the time, vetoed the legislation -- and Brown voted to override the veto.

Scott Brown, in other words, falls short of the Romney record during those years, from a pro-life, conscience-concern perspective. The Romney record, as you?ll recall, was met with skepticism by more than a few national pro-life leaders (skepticism I believe to have been unwise, albeit understandable -- but that?s also a debate for another day). But Martha Coakley wants you to believe Scott Brown will be leading the National March for Life later this month in Washington, D.C.

Brown?s daughters met the press on Tuesday in Boston to discuss the issue. Ayla Brown, 21, said that ?Martha Coakley?s new negative ad represents everything that discourages young women from getting involved in politics.?

So why, you may be wondering, would Massachusetts Citizens for Life ever endorse Scott Brown, as they have? Because Martha Coakley is an abortion-rights activist with a long and devoted record to the cause -- opposing a ban on partial-birth abortion, working in her free time to help teens bypass their parents to obtain abortions -- while Scott Brown, who has made clear he has no interest in seeing Roe v. Wade overturned, is a friend to pro-life activists on issues that could actually come before him (unlike overturning Roe). ?He?s not perfect, but she?s awful,? is how one committed pro-lifer put it to me Tuesday.

Scott Brown is someone who can work with pro-life activists. He doesn?t pretend to be someone he?s not. But he is not easily labeled. And the label Coakley?s sticking on him isn?t right, as a simple Google search reveals. But when you?re desperate, having never planned on actually having a fight on your hands, what?s a Democrat to do? Reminding people you?re of the party of Kennedy is not enough -- your Republican opponent is reminding voters that the Kennedy who was once in the White House supported tax cuts and was a fiscal conservative compared to the Kennedy party of today.

When desperate, abort the truth. Because the truth reveals Scott Brown to be a candidate who?s open to common sense, which leads him to make common cause with pro-life activists. He?s not like the many who were once pro-life but became pro-choice and compromised human lives for political gain (such as Al Gore, Tom Daschle, and, effectively, Ben Nelson). If elected, Brown would be a fresh breeze out of the Bay State.

-- Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on January 13, 2010 (boomark / email).