Romney Struggles to Define Abortion Stance
By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 23, 2007; Page A01
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said this week that as president he would allow individual states to keep abortion legal, two weeks after telling a national television audience that he supports a constitutional amendment to ban the procedure nationwide.
In an interview with a Nevada television station on Tuesday, Romney said Roe. v. Wade should be abolished and vowed to "let states make their own decision in this regard." On Aug. 6, he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he supports a human life amendment to the Constitution that would protect the unborn.
"I do support the Republican platform, and I do support that being part of the Republican platform, and I'm pro-life," Romney said in the ABC interview, broadcast days before his victory among conservative Iowa voters in the Ames straw poll.
The two very different statements reflect the challenge for Romney, who has reinvented himself as a champion of the antiabortion movement in recent years and is seeking to become the conservative alternative to former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination.
Critics, including his GOP rivals, have questioned his commitment to the antiabortion cause, contrasting his statements as a pro-abortion-rights governor earlier this decade with his antiabortion rhetoric as a presidential candidate.
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