Anti-abortion groups target Oberstar with contested statements

National anti-abortion groups are targeting Rep. James Oberstar with a series of mailings criticizing his support for health care reform. The groups point to Oberstar’s vote for the Affordable Health Care and Patient Protection Act of 2010 to claim he supports federal funding for abortion and therefore is no longer “pro-life.” But as fact-checkers have pointed out, health care reform does not include federal funding for abortion. In fact, one national group that’s targeting Oberstar, the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), has landed in court over the statements.

SBA List has spent $32,432 on mailers in opposition to Oberstar so far this cycle. The group says it’s part of a larger campaign targeting 42 candidates around the country. Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life has also attacked Oberstar, charging that he supported federal funding for abortion by voting for health care reform.

SBA List sent this statement out last spring:

“Congressman Oberstar can no longer call himself ‘pro-life.’ He has set himself with the likes of NARAL, NOW, and Planned Parenthood, and has betrayed his pro-life principles and his constituents. Seventy-four percent of voters in the eighth district oppose taxpayer funding of abortion as part of health care reform, according to a survey commissioned by the Susan B. Anthony List this week. Fifty-six percent of Rep. Oberstar’s constituents surveyed also said that they would be less likely to vote for him next Election Day if he supported healthcare with abortion funding.”

The National Right to Life Committee said the same thing in their endorsement of Oberstar’s Republican opponent Chip Cravaack.

“We’re proud to endorse Chip Cravaack for Congress,” said director Karen Cross. “Chip Cravaack is firmly committed to repealing the anti-life provisions of the pro-abortion, pro-rationing Obama health care law passed by Congress in March – a law that Jim Oberstar voted for and helped enact.”

And MCCL echoed those sentiments in their endorsement of Cravaack.

“Jim Oberstar has turned away from the pro-life principles he used to hold in common with the citizens of the 8th District,” MCCL director Scott Fischbach said. “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.”

But as Jesse Zwick at our sister site the Washington Independent reports, experts agree that the bill does not fund abortions. Likewise, at least one authority isn’t buying the logic either.

In Ohio, the elections commission panel ruled that there was probable cause to believe that a billboard that read, “Shame on [Rep.] Steve Driehaus! Driehaus voted FOR taxpayer-funded abortion,” was false. The billboard owner pulled the ad. The full elections commission is set to rule on the ad on Oct. 28, but SBA List is suing the board in District Court to prevent them from ruling on the ad.

Oberstar has long been “pro-life,” earning endorsements throughout his career from MCCL, SBA List and the National Right to Life Committee. He was once co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus. The National Right to Life Committee has given him a 100 percent rating four times since 1996 and ratings above 80 percent in every Congress since then, with one exception: In 2008, he scored 71 percent.