In move Oberstar dubs ‘partisan,’ anti-abortion lobby endorses Cravaack

Citing Rep. James Oberstar’s support for the federal health care reform law, the anti-abortion group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life pulled its support from the incumbent congressman and announced it’s backing Republican Chip Cravaack. MCCL says the health care reform bill funds abortions, but Oberstar points out that’s not the case.

“Jim Oberstar has turned away from the pro-life principles he used to hold in common with the citizens of the 8th District,” MCCL’s Scott Fischbach said in a statement. “He has walked away from the pro-life movement. For years Jim Oberstar has had a 100 percent pro-life voting record and now he has a zero percent pro-life voting record. Just as Jim Oberstar has abandoned the babies, it is time for the voters to retire Jim Oberstar.”

MCCL says that the health care reform bill signed into law this summer would pay for abortions and Oberstar’s vote for the bill was a vote to “institute health care rationing and taxpayer funding of abortion.”

The group said that Cravaack will work “to protect our country’s most vulnerable citizens – the unborn.”

But Oberstar says the group is playing partisan politics and insists he remains steadfastly anti-abortion.

“When the MCCL and the National Right-to-Life Committee made a decision years ago to accept funding from the National Republican Party and make campaign finance issues a top priority, they forfeited their claim to be a non-partisan, pro-life organization,” Oberstar said.

MCCL was one of three supporters of Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer in a lawsuit to overturn Minnesota’s campaign finance disclosure laws so that independent expenditure groups did not have to disclose their funding sources. That case was dismissed several weeks ago.

Oberstar took issue with MCCL’s claim that the health care reform measure funds abortions, pointing to a FactCheck.org report that finds no evidence to support MCCL’s claims.

“The pro-life protections are written into the health care law,” Oberstar said. “We insisted that the Department of Health and Human Services review it and give us written assurance that language would prevent federal funding of abortion. Then we had President Obama sign an executive order to make it absolutely certain. To ignore our work on this issue and then to distort the facts is proof positive that MCCL has lost its way.”

He added, “A study by Harvard Medical School finds that 45,000 people die prematurely each year because they do not have access to screenings and preventative care. You can’t just be concerned about life from conception to birth; you have to be concerned about all life. I have worked with MCCL for many years on these issues, and it saddens me to see them abandon their principles in this manner.”

Oberstar’s efforts to prevent abortion funding in the health care reform bill raised the ire of progressive groups this spring, including Minnesota National Organization of Women.