Jeff Johnson, CNSNews.com
Tuesday, March 30, 2004

As the former chief of staff to Sen. Ted Kennedy and former director of the pro-abortion group EMILY's List, Cahill would take Kerry, already one of the most liberal members of the Senate, even further left if he became president, say conservatives who spoke with CNSNews.com.

As Kerry's campaign manager, Cahill is credited, even by her fired predecessor, with taking a faltering presidential campaign and orchestrating such an impressive comeback that once he started winning, Kerry was never seriously challenged by any of the other Democrat candidates for president. As of late March, Kerry had become the presumptive nominee and zeroed in on the Republican incumbent, George W. Bush.

"We were doing a lot right, mechanically and strategically," former Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan told The Washington Post. "But there were broken pieces, too, a lot of frayed personal relationships ..."

Jordan said Kerry "made the right decision" by hiring Cahill.

"She's been superb, absolutely professional, a perfect cure for the problems that were bogging things down," Jordan added.

Slaughter up to the Moment of Birth

Rep. Grace F. Napolitano, D-Calif., knows Cahill's ability to bring a campaign around first-hand. Napolitano's 1998 come-from-behind victory was made possible in part by help from Cahill, who was then executive director of the political action committee EMILY's List. The group provides assistance only to female candidates who completely support the legalization of abortion during all nine months of pregnancy.

"She is one of the best strategists and one of the most recognized women in politics that I know of," Napolitano told CQ Weekly.

Karin Johanson, who worked with Cahill at EMILY's List, described Cahill to the Los Angeles Times as someone who is "one of the smartest people I've ever met.

"She's very good at what she does," Johanson said. "She likes to win."

On its Web site, EMILY's List is described as an organization that "operates as a donor network, recommending pro-choice Democratic women candidates to its members, who contribute directly to the candidates they choose."

"In its 19-year history, EMILY's List has helped elect seven women governors, 11 women to the United States Senate and 55 women to the U.S. House of Representatives," the group claims. "In the 2002 elections, EMILY's List and its almost 73,000 members contributed nearly $9.7 million to pro-choice Democratic women candidates..."

Many conservative political advocates, who already view Kerry as a pro-abortion extremist, are wary of Cahill's influence on the liberal Democrat.

"John Kerry has a solid, pro-abortion voting record," explained Carol Tobias, political director for National Right to Life Committee. "He supports partial-birth abortion, he doesn't think parents have the right to be notified if their minor daughter is pregnant and considering an abortion, he just doesn't want to recognize that the unborn child exists. That's why he's opposed to the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

"If John Kerry is in the White House next year," Tobias added, "millions of babies will die for years to come."

According to a "priority" item labeled "Protect the Right to Choose" on the Kerry campaign's Web site, "John Kerry believes that women have the right to control their own bodies, their own lives, and their own destinies."

"Choose" and "choice" are words frequently used by pro-abortion activists seeking to avoid the word abortion. For example, NARAL: Pro-Choice America was formerly known as National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, and before that National Abortion Rights Action League.

"[Kerry] believes that the Constitution protects their right to choose and to make their own decisions in consultation with their doctor, their conscience, and their God," the campaign Web site's statement continues. "He will defend this right as President."

Litmus Test

The priority statement also notes that Kerry "recently announced he will support only pro-choice judges to the Supreme Court. Kerry also believes that we should promote family planning and health plans should assure women contraceptive coverage."

The phrase "family planning" is used by the United Nations and pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to refer to contraception, abortion and sterilization.

Joseph Starrs, director of American Life League's "Crusade for the Defense of Our Catholic Church," grudgingly acknowledged that Cahill was "obviously a skilled political operative."

"She's known for whipping her candidates into shape," Starrs observed. "What worries me is that she, obviously, is to the left of John Kerry."

Starrs referenced Cahill's history with EMILY's List as evidence of her "ultra-liberal" credentials.

"That is a radical left organization that's bent on getting women into office that support abortion on demand," Starrs said. "If you have somebody who has actually worked for EMILY's List as your right-hand woman, you know darn well what's going to happen when the Supreme Court vacancies come up, and I'm certain that they will in the next four years."

Starrs fears Cahill would encourage Kerry into radical positions that he might otherwise not find politically expedient.

"I'm 99.9 percent certain that Mary Beth Cahill will have a bad influence in terms of judicial appointments. I'm sure that the Mexico City Policy would be reversed in the same way that Clinton did it," Starrs cautioned.

The Mexico City Policy is an executive order - instituted by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, maintained by President George H.W. Bush, repealed by President Bill Clinton and reinstated by President George W. Bush - that bans the use of U.S. taxpayer money to fund overseas organizations that perform or promote abortions.

In late 2003, the pro-life Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam) completed an investigation of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which coordinates most of the government-funded "family planning" activities in the developed and developing world. Its report is entitled Assault on the World's Peoples. C-Fam's investigation concluded that, "UNFPA has been complicit in coercive population control programs in the developing world and that UNFPA secretly supports and promotes abortion."

UNFPA was one of the agencies that lost funding when President George W. Bush reinstated the Mexico City Policy. Another was International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). That group received $23.4 million from U.S. taxpayers in Clinton's last budget. At the height of his support for its activities, Clinton lobbied Congress for and obtained more than $25 million in one year for IPPF.

Starrs believes Cahill would encourage Kerry to seek similar funding.

'Out of Touch'

"I really think that, for the pro-life movement," Starrs continued, "'President Kerry' would be an absolute disaster, and Mary Beth Cahill would be pulling him to the left, to the left all along the way."

Tobias agreed that Cahill would only reinforce Kerry's pro-abortion activism.

"They'll feed off one another," Tobias said. "If he thinks that most Americans support his position, and he probably does, and she's going to be telling him that he's got the right position, and it just keeps going back and forth, and they don't realize how extreme they are and how out of touch they are with the American people."

Tobias is also concerned that Kerry would "vigorously" pursue taxpayer funding for embryonic stem cell research, which many pro-lifers believe results in the death of a human being.

"And he will block any other pro-life measures from getting passed," Tobias added.

Bush announced in August 2001 that existing embryonic stem cell lines maintained by taxpayer-funded laboratories could be used for research purposes, but that no new embryos could be created just to remove their stem cells for research.

"Embryonic stem cell research offers both great promise and great peril," Bush said. "So I've decided we must proceed with great care."

Many pro-lifers consider the embryo, the first stage of development of a fertilized egg, to already be a human being. Destroying it for any purpose, they believe, is just as evil as killing a more fully developed unborn child in an abortion.

The Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of Traditional Values Coalition, said such pro-life concerns would never be considered in a White House where Cahill reinforced Kerry's liberal ideology daily.

"There's no question that Mr. Kerry is already on the far left side of the political spectrum," Sheldon said. "Putting her there only puts him in firmer and more specific cement."

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