Healey, prochoice GOP women distance selves on abortion issue
They were called Women for Romney, and as the 2002 race for governor reached its peak, Romney's campaign asked them to send out postcards urging their friends to the polls.
''Mitt has always supported a women's right to choose," the campaign postcard read. ''Mitt inherits a proud legacy from his mother, who championed a woman's right to choose when she ran for US Senate in 1970 in Michigan before Roe v. Wade when abortion was a crime not a choice."
Yesterday, some of the Women for Romney volunteers were furious with Romney's declaration that he is ''prolife" and that he disapproved of the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal nationwide. He announced his stance Monday as he vetoed a bill that would expand access to emergency contraception.
''I'm very disappointed," said Nancy Luther, a Republican state committeewoman from Topsfield and a member of Republican Majority for Choice, which endorsed Romney in 2002. ''He's put his political future above the promises he made to Massachusetts."
Romney's new stance on abortion persuaded several GOP activists interviewed yesterday that he will run for president rather than seek reelection as governor. The activists said that Romney had shed his moderate stance, useful in a liberal state like Massachusetts, and repositioned himself to court social conservatives in a presidential primary.
''I think he's gone," said one Republican activist who did not want to be named. ''He's just made it so much more difficult [for him] to run for governor."
In 2002, with Democrats fanning suspicion that his abortion rights support was lukewarm, Romney's campaign gave Women for Romney the questionnaire he had completed for an abortion rights group. Asked whether he would support expanding access to emergency contraception, Romney had answered a simple yes.
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, who plans to run for governor if Romney decides to forgo a reelection race, sought to distinguish her position from Romney's by saying she firmly supports the US Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
''I feel choice is a fundamental privacy issue, so I support Roe v. Wade," she said in an interview with the Globe. Healey said she had spoken with the governor on ''a number of occasions" about the bill, urging him to sign it into law.
But she said the disagreement has not affected their working relationship. ''I understood he might come out differently [on the legislation]. I gave him my advice and counsel, and he chose to go in a different direction," Healey said.
Though Republican leaders maintain that Romney has not yet decided whether to run for president or governor, his veto message inflated the hopes of some in the GOP. ''At this point, it clearly seems like we've got a campaign to look forward to in 2008," said Jon Spampinato, a Republican activist who organized the campaign to recruit Romney to run in 2002.
But other rank-and-file Republicans are reluctant to let go of Romney for a national race, fearing his chances of success are better in Massachusetts.
''He has an opportunity to win the governorship again," Dick Hersum, chairman of the Weston Republican town committee said last week. ''It's a bigger challenge to try to get the nomination for president, particularly for a Massachusetts candidate."
''I have no doubt in my mind that he could win again," said Carol Nathan, a Republican State Committee member from Franklin, who said the veto would not affect Romney's support. ''I still would prefer him to be governor, because I feel like there's so much more to be done. But he has to go where his heart takes him."
Even Luther, dismayed by his veto, said she would support a Romney reelection. ''Oh, I'd vote for him, because I'm a Republican and I'm a party activist," she said.
But she said she fears that his new position will cost him the support of independent voters, who viewed him as the kind of moderate Republican abortion rights supporter who had been in the corner office for a dozen years when he ran for office.
''It's a matter of credibility on his part," she said.
Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com 