This story is a travesty. MRL punishes incumbent legislators who had the gall to vote in favor of a budget for Missouri. This organization should not have any credibility. You’re a journalist. Go beyond the press release and ask how does MRL arrive at these endorsements.

are all the pro-life candidates going to get us out of Iraq? That would save alot of lives!
I hope they all oppose capital punishment as well.

If you go the MRL’s website, you’ll read how they believe “that what happens with abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia will determine what happens with all other life issues around the world. Please do not misunderstand; we do not say that other life issues are unimportant. We say that they are important, but in the present time and circumstances, abortion, infanticide and euthanasia are the crucial issues upon which the other issues will rise or fall.” So obviously, stopping abortion is the only way we can stop the death penalty. Oh poor St. Thomas Aquinas! He must be reeling in his grave at the travesty of moral theology gone awry! Who knew the principle of double-effect means what MRL claims!

You know, I look at this as a list of who NOT to vote for. But, I do wonder why they didn’t endorse in the Atty General race. Isn’t Gibbons strongly in their camp?

It’s worthwhile following the link to the list. It’s very informative in that it lists every candidate, so the endorsements can be put in proper context. In addition to being either endorsed or not, each candidate is rated according to MRL’s standards of pro-lifedness, or if they blew off the survey.

That’s where my compliments to MRL end. Their endorsements don’t serve their interests well. For one thing, they repeat their 2002 mistake by taking the word of fringe candidates and then endorsing them over more substantial candidates who didn’t respond. (The 2002 reference is to the State Auditor’s contest that year, when MRL endorsed former Democrat and convicted felon Al Hanson in the Republican primary over the party’s recruited candidate, Jay Kanzler, who hadn’t sent in their form. MRL’s endorsement was widely blamed for Hanson’s amazing upset win in the primary.) This year’s questionable endorsements of that vein include the 3rd CD, where MRL endorsed political unknown John Wayne Tucker over party recruit Chris Sander.

But mostly. the endorsements suffer from MRL’s organization ego trip over the Missouri budget vote allude to above, because it included some university funding that MRL suspected of being possibly maybe used for embryonic stem cell research. The result is that several incumbent legislators who had been loyal anti-choice (I mean “pro-life”) foot soldiers throughout their career now find themselves running against challengers who may well have voted the same way if they had been there to vote but didn’t have their pro-life credentials blemished just because they weren’t serving this past term. Incumbents (and legislators running for higher office) in that predicament include Democrats Michele Kratky and Charlie Norr and Republicans Bob Onder, Danie Moore, Brad Lager, Mike Gibbons, Kevin Engler, Jane Cunningham, Neil St Onge, David Pearce, Jim Guest, Ryan Silvey, Dwight Scharnhorst, Mark Bruns, Stanley Cox, Don Ruzicka, Ray Weter and Maynard Wallace. Incredible!

Oracle,

You need to do your homework. We (yes, I am with MRL) endorse and rate candidates after VERY careful evaluation and discussion. And exactly how does Charlie Norr meet your criteria as “legislators who had been loyal anti-choice”? Check the record.

Weter and Wallace have never returned a survey to us. Silvey appears to solidly support the Greater KC Chamber’s embryonic stem cell agenda. No one publicly exposed Al Hanson as a felon before we endorsed him, and we didn’t know either.

Bottom line, we use multi-year records, statements, and surveys to do a very hard job in trying our best to give the pro-life public a guide to use in determining which candidates they choose to support. The most important of these is the voting record.

Many legislators have criticized MRL but have given NO sound legal reasoning why they think we are wrong. We are waiting, but that reasoning won’t come because many of these legislators are much more interested in taking the conservative vote for granted than actually moving the pro-life movement forward in state government. Anti-life votes include MOHELA, the Missouri Technology Corporation, and appropriating money with now-unconstitutional restrictions that open the door to unlimited taxpayer funding for research involving embryonic stem cells and human cloning.

See http://www.missourilife.org/legislation/index.htm

for complete voting records for the last two years and explanations of MRL’s position on this legislation.

MRL is not, nor ever will be, obliged to support candidates or incumbents that disagree with the pro-life position, cast anti-life votes, or refuse to disclose their positions on critical life issues.

We proudly stand by our endorsements and ratings. We are very disappointed that many choose not to believe our reasoned stances and then want us to support them anyway. Our members come first—period. And we are much more interested in telling the truth than to “play the game” in Jefferson City just to get along.

Dave P:

I mentioned 18 anti-choice (”pro-life” to you) legislators whom I identified as being pro-life foot soldiers, and you challenged me on three. That leaves the other 15 unchallenged. Even if you were right about the three (and I don’t concede that you are), I remain undisputed as to 83% of my examples.

The main problem with MRL endorsements is that MRL includes opposition to embryonic stem cell research as a litmus test for being “pro-life,” even for individuals who have constantly voted for and supported efforts to illegalize and otherwise restrict abortions. A big hunk of the public, even the pro-life public, disagrees. MRL has every right to lobby for such policy, but in doing so it loses credibility with the public, including a big hunk of the “pro-life” public.

Also, you claim that the most important factor for MRL endorsements is voting record. BS. The most important factor is a candidate’s willingness to bow down and stoke your organizational ego by filling out your silly questionnaire. Proof: There are 11 individuals who met even your most stringest definition of “pro-life” to receive your “PL” rating, but who did not return your survey, and MRL didn’t endorse any of them. Not even one!

Vote for “pro-life” candidates if you want birth control pills banned.

HHS Moves to Define Contraception as Abortion
In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman’s access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of Americans use, as abortion.
[...]
Up until now, the federal government followed the definition of pregnancy accepted by the American Medical Association and our nation’s pregnancy experts, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is: pregnancy begins at implantation. [...] It now claims that pregnancy begins at some biologically unknowable moment (there’s no test to determine if a woman’s egg has been fertilized). Under these new standards there would be no way for a woman to prove she’s not pregnant. Thus, any woman could be denied contraception under HHS’ new science.
[...]
Most dangerously, perhaps, this new rule establishes a legal precedent that may eventually be used as a basis for banning the most popular forms of birth control along with what is, in fact, abortion.

I am strongly pro choice and supportive of stem cell research. In fact I have worked a few times against Missouri Right to Life in Jefferson City. I completely disagree with their positions.

But I think the posters are giving MRL a bad rap. Everyone knew that these votes were a priority for MRL. They feel stem cell research is wrong. Their membership which I think is not close to being representative of your average Missourian feels the research is wrong.

The truth is a lot of legislators, both D and R, are willing to take the anti choice position when it doesn’t matter. But when all of the sudden the stem cell people start throwing around campaign contributions and make no mistake they have tossed around contributions that total in the seven figures all these “pro life” people become pro stem cell.

I also have no problem with MRL not endorsing people that refuse to fill out surveys. Organizations like MRL are part of the process and any candidate worth a grain of salt should no that you have to fill out surveys. MRL’s is nutty but they are entitled to not endorsing a candidate who will not fill out their survey. That is the process and everyone knows it.

Oracle, as is most often the case, is right on this issue. Case in point: the Luetkemeyer endorsement. Now, I’m not saying that Luetkemeyer isn’t 100% pro-life, but the list states Onder’s record as being mixed. Mixed? He introduced a strong anti-abortion bill that nearly became the law of the land! The stated reason for that is that he had the temerity to vote for one of those budget bills, even though he opposed any stem-cell language, fought against specific stem-cell language, and was the president of the main organization to fight against Amendment 2 in 2006. I’m fairly certain Onder qualifies under their definition as being 100% pro-life, and it’s quite frankly ludicrous to suggest that he’s not fully pro-life.

Dave P, I’ve worked in the past with people who have to deal with MRL. Over the past few years, your organization has seriously went off the deep end trying to get people to support every little nook and cranny of their agenda. Think I’m wrong? Here’s a hypothetical: What if there was a bill that completely banned abortion except in cases of rape or in cases where the mother’s life was at stake? What would MRL’s position be on that? Would it be that it was a large step in the right direction? Or, most likely, would MRL come out strongly against officials and candidates who supported it, because it didn’t go far enough? I’m pretty sure most people on here would correctly identify that the second choice would be MRL’s position.

One of my first bosses in politics taught me to never make the perfect the enemy of the good. MRL should hire him and have him teach them a few things.