Romney calls self 'convert' to antiabortion cause
Activists honor former governor amid protests
AGAWAM -- Presidential candidate Mitt Romney last night accepted an award from a central Massachusetts antiabortion group, using the occasion to declare himself among the "converts" of the national movement to outlaw abortion.
"I am evidence that your work, that your relentless campaign to promote the sanctity of human life bears fruit," Romney told several hundred activists. "I do follow . . . a long line of converts: George Herbert Walker Bush, Henry Hyde, Ronald Reagan."
Romney had repeated a similar admission at recent campaign stops to rebut charges -- primarily from hard line antiabortion groups -- that he has been inconsistent on an issue that remains dear to conservative voters.
His speech was protested by both abortion-rights groups and antiabortion factions, underscoring the delicate balance the former Massachusetts governor must strike on the issue.
Just outside the banquet hall where Romney spoke, a small group of protesters from Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund -- three of them dressed in giant purplish flip-flop costumes -- stood chanting anti-Romney slogans in the early evening sunshine.
"This hasn't just been a flip-flop, it's been an extreme makeover," said Lisa Dacey , spokeswoman for the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts. "He's someone who will say anything to get elected."
The group was borrowing from the playbook of groups opposed to US Senator John F. Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, when costumed protesters frequently appeared at his campaign stops to draw attention to his position on the Iraq war.
On the other side, some antiabortion groups, which have been critical of his shifting stance, issued angry press releases.
But Kevin A. Jourdain , chairman of the Pioneer Valley chapter of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, said antiabortion groups should rally around the former Bay State governor.
"The whole purpose of the prolife movement is education and conversion," said Jourdain, who is also a Holyoke city councilman. "Mitt Romney is part of the conversion. We should applaud him. We should celebrate him."
Jourdain said the $15,000 donation Romney recently made to the antiabortion group went to its Boston chapter and had no influence on the Pioneer Valley chapter, which gave him the award yesterday.
Romney's speech yesterday briefly touched on his fiscal management as governor and his record on job creation, while explaining in some detail his opposition to same-sex marriage.
But it was his views on abortion that the crowd came to hear.
As governor, he said in prepared remarks, "I concluded wrongly that I would support the law as it was in place -- effectively a prochoice position. And I was wrong."
He explained his current view on human embryos: "What some see as a mere clump of cells is actually a human life."
Though it is still early in the 2008 race, political analysts said Romney must guard against becoming defined by the controversy over his shifting positions on abortion.
"He wants to position himself as the conservative alternative to [John] McCain and [Rudolph] Giuliani ," said Stuart Rothenberg , publisher of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. "This controversy may complicate that."
Rothenberg said it was difficult to predict how antiabortion voters will react to Romney.
"You're going to find people who will accept Romney and others who think he's Satan," said Rothenberg. "The question is whether he can find enough support to get political cover." 