After Months Of "Beating Up" Rand Paul, The Louisville Courier Journal Breaks Out "Kiddie Gloves" For Jack Conway. Read About It.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway leans left, but not on all issues
By Joseph Gerth
Within two weeks of winning Kentucky's Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, Rand Paul sent out at least four e-mails describing Democratic opponent Jack Conway as "too far left," linking him to "his liberal Washington, D.C., buddies."
But a Courier-Journal review of Conway's public statements over the last decade found that while he does have liberal views on some issues such as abortion rights and health-care reform, his outlook is conservative or moderate on others, including the death penalty and gay marriage.
Even so, political observers -- on both sides of the spectrum -- who reviewed Conway's statements say Paul shouldn't have much trouble labeling Conway as a liberal among Kentucky's generally conservative electorate.
"Taking this entire range of issues into account, I would characterize Jack Conway as a moderate," said Laurie Rhodebeck, a political scientist at the University of Louisville. "There are, however, a few issues that conservatives could effectively use to portray Conway as a liberal."
Among them, Conway has said publicly that he favors abortion rights during the first trimester of pregnancy; backs tougher regulation of business; supports the health-care reform bill that President Barack Obama signed into law earlier this year; wants to end the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay service members; and would expand the federal civil-rights law to add protections based on sexual orientation.
Conversely, Conway as Kentucky's attorney general has sought execution warrants against death-row inmates who have exhausted their appeals; opposed gay marriage; backed mandatory sentences for drug dealers; and cracked down on Internet crime -- positions that moderate his politics.
In 2002, as a candidate for Louisville's 3rd District congressional seat, Conway said he would have voted for President George W. Bush's request to use military force in Iraq, and he supported many provisions of the Patriot Act that gave the federal government expanded power to read people's mail and e-mail and tap their telephones.
"Conway's campaign platform marks him as a fairly typical national Democrat, neither as liberal as the Democrats one sees nominated in coastal states nor as moderate as old-style Southern Democrats," said Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky.
Some of Conway's past statements seem to conflict -- favoring some rights for gays while opposing others, or supporting abortion rights while opposing government payments to groups that perform abortions, even if those funds don't pay for the procedure itself.
Conway said in an interview last week that neither "liberal" nor "conservative" fits him well.
"I consider myself a political moderate," he said. "Fiscally, I can be pretty conservative. I'm pretty conservative, I think, on the 2nd Amendment" to the Constitution, guaranteeing the right to bear arms.
Kentucky voters may agree. A Courier-Journal/WHAS11 Bluegrass Poll, conducted by Survey USA in May, found that 22 percent said Conway was liberal, while 58 percent believed that he was either "moderate" or "other." Thirteen percent said he was conservative.
Gay Rights
Still, conservative voices in Kentucky say they have no doubt that Conway leans left, especially on issues such as gay rights.
The Rev. Hershael York, pastor of Frankfort's Buck Run Baptist Church and a professor at Louisville's Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said that Conway's stance on gay rights is an "obvious and definitive marker of a liberal world view."
During a debate at the University of Louisville April 1, Conway commended Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for "courageously" telling Congress that "it's very difficult to ask someone to deny who they are in order to defend their country ... I look forward to voting to end 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'"
But York says that no one is contending that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" "hasn't worked and allowed gays to serve in the military, only that one of the parties no longer wishes to compromise and now hopes to display a same-sex orientation openly."
During the same debate, Conway advocated for a federal anti-discrimination law protecting gays.
"Here in Louisville, we've adopted a law that basically says when it comes to housing, when it comes to accommodations, when it comes to employment, that we don't discriminate. And you know what? We're a better community for it," he said. "We need in Washington a law that says we're not going to discriminate in jobs, were not going to discriminate in accommodations and we're not going to discriminate in housing."
But Conway also said during the debate that he believes marriage is only between a man and a woman. And, in a recent interview, he refused to say how he voted on the 2004 state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Kentucky.
In a 2007 debate on Kentucky Educational Television during his campaign for attorney general, Conway said he agreed with the ruling by then-Attorney General Greg Stumbo that state universities offering same-sex partner benefits were violating the Kentucky Constitution.
"... The way the universities were offering the benefits was in violation of the 2004 marriage amendment," he said.
Health care
Conway has said he favors the Obama-backed reform measure passed earlier this year; supports an expansion of Medicare; and endorses legislation sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., that required health insurers to provide certain screenings and preventative care for women at little or no cost.
"I'm optimistic that the new exchanges and other provisions are going to do great things to expand coverage and lower costs in the next few years," he said earlier this year in a questionnaire for the website Daily Kos. "I think with an issue as complex as health care the details really matter in terms of how we implement the law. I'm open to considering options like a Medicare buy-in that would bring younger, healthier adults into Medicare, and take advantage of the efficiencies in Medicare's delivery system. My only requirement would be that I want to make sure any changes to Medicare in the future do not diminish benefits for seniors."
In a 2002 KET debate during his congressional bid, Conway said he favored a prescription drug benefit for those on Medicare -- a change subsequently approved by Congress.
On his Facebook page, Conway explained his support for the preventive-care legislation for women by saying: "I strongly believe that to effectively reduce health-care costs over the long term, we must begin to focus on preventative care, rather than sick care."
York said that while Conway's support of health-care reform doesn't necessarily make him a liberal, "One cannot help but wonder in what other areas of life Mr. Conway would be willing to shift primary responsibility from the individual to his government."
But Conway said in his interview with The Courier-Journal that he supported a version of the bill that created insurance exchanges rather than a single-payer system favored by more liberal Democrats: "So I would place myself in the moderate wing of the Democratic Party."
But Voss said Conway's most "radical" position may be his comment to Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel earlier this year in explaining why he refused to join a lawsuit filed mainly by Republican state attorneys general that challenged the federal health-care bill.
"My copy of the Constitution doesn't carry a right not to be insured and that, if you don't carry insurance, you're likely to be some sort of drag on the system," Conway said. "Now, those are not my words, Neil. Those are words of ... Charles Fried, who's a Harvard law professor and Ronald Reagan's solicitor general from 1985 to 1989."
Russell Weaver, a law professor at the University of Louisville, called Conway's statement "overly simplistic. The question is whether the federal government has the constitutional authority to enact this law. The answer to that question is hardly as clear cut or as obvious as Conway suggests."
Conway defended his statement, saying he was paraphrasing Fried.
Immigration
Conway says he favors increased border security and supports giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship -- if they wait in line behind those who came to the United States legally.
In 2002 he told Project Vote Smart, a nonprofit group that compiles candidates' views, that he favored establishing English as the nation's official language and allowing the federal government to collect fingerprint data from everyone who applies for a visa to enter the United States.
In the 2007 KET debate, Conway advocated allowing local police officers to enforce immigration laws against those who commit crimes, and he called for going after employers who hire illegal immigrants.
"The federal government has abrogated responsibility on this critical issue," he said.
But in a recent interview, he raised concerns about Arizona's new immigration law, which the Obama administration is challenging in court.
"I don't think a patchwork system of immigration laws will work," he told Insight's new political blog, cn|2 Politics. "Whatever the merits or the shortcomings of the Arizona law, if Arizona enacts its own law that is different from New Mexico's, you might end up driving business to New Mexico or you might end up pushing in one direction and having an unintended consequence elsewhere."
Conway said in his interview with The Courier-Journal that he generally believes illegal immigrants should be sent back to their home countries, but he doesn't want to break up families by deporting the parents of children born in the United States.
"If you're born on the United States soil, then you're a United States citizen," he said. "I think that's clear."
Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors a tougher immigration policy, said Conway's position "sounds like he has a more common-sense approach than a lot of Democrats have." But he added that Conway needs to flesh out his position for voters.
"It's more important for a candidate to have a clearly defined position on the president's amnesty agenda than any other issue," Dane said. "His constituency will need more crystallization on what he thinks of an amnesty plan."
Taxes
In the 2002 questionnaire for Project Vote Smart, Conway said he favors cutting taxes for those who earn less than $75,000 a year and that he supports lowering inheritance taxes. He also supports increasing the allowable deductions for medical expenses, child tax credits, earned income tax credits and student loans.
And during the KET debate that year with then-U.S. Rep. Anne Northup, a Republican, Conway said he would have supported President George W. Bush's tax cuts.
"I've said I would have done so with some misgivings," he said. "... I have taken some flack from members of my own party for saying that I would have voted for that tax cut, but I would have."
He added, however, that "I'm not going to go to Washington and vote to make permanent tax relief for the wealthiest 1 percent."
In March, on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," Conway called for cutting $200 billion from the federal deficit by allowing Medicare to purchase drugs in bulk and reaping $130 billion from ending offshore tax havens and repealing tax breaks for companies that move jobs offshore.
In his interview, Conway said he doesn't believe that the government should raise taxes on most Americans while the recession continues and he favors a modified federal-estate tax that would affect only about the top 1 percent.
Financial reform
Several times Conway has called for stricter financial regulations, and at least once he urged a government breakup of companies that have grown too large through mergers and acquisitions.
"It used to be that 30 percent control in a particular market triggered an antitrust review. Well, that no longer seems the case," he said in a speech last November in Owensboro. "Competition is a Democratic ideal and a Republican ideal. And if we need to break up some of these companies, to have prudent regulation in our marketplace, then let's do it."
Rhodebeck said this is one area where Conway is significantly more liberal than Paul, a Bowling Green eye doctor, who argues that government should take a "laissez faire" approach to business, allowing the free market to operate.
"He talks about the need for accountability on Wall Street and in businesses like BP," Rhodebeck said. "Considering what has happened in the past two years, one might expect such views to resonate with a public that feels helpless in the face of corporate giants that behave irresponsibly.
"But the idea of government 'intrusion' into the private sector seems to have become a concern, making it easier to spin Conway's comments about business and government as liberal, rather than populist," she said.
In his interview, Conway said some of the banks that were deemed too big to fail should be broken up. Locally, he said, Marathon Oil Co., which controls a large segment of the gasoline market in Northern Kentucky, should be forced to divest of some of its gas stations there.
Jim Waters, the vice president for policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a Bowling Green-based free-market think tank, said Conway's ideas on business indicate that he is a "collectivist" and a "liberal, not in the best sense of the word."
"He would set some arbitrary number or size (of market share) and allow the government to step in and basically destroy business," Waters said. "That is not the way the free-market system works."
National Security
During his 2002 congressional race, Conway said he supported the war in Iraq and favored some provisions of the Patriot Act, which made it easier for government agents to conduct surveillance on American citizens.
According to his Project Vote Smart questionnaire, Conway also favored the use of military tribunals to try suspected terrorists.
"I support the president on Iraq," he said during a 2002 KET interview. "... You have to reach across the aisle in situations like this, and I would have been among the 40 percent of Democrats that voted for the resolution on Iraq."
Ron Ray, a Crestwood lawyer who was deputy assistant defense secretary under President Ronald Reagan, said Conway's analysis of what should have happened before the United States invaded Iraq -- seeking authorization from Congress and gaining the support of other nations -- is based generally on sound constitutional reasoning. But he said he believes Conway ultimately came to the wrong conclusion in supporting the invasion "because we were lied to war" by the Bush administration.
And he said Conway's support for the Patriot Act "doesn't make him a liberal or a conservative, it makes him a big-government guy, and there are plenty of big-government guys in both the Republican and Democratic parties."
Conway said in his Courier-Journal interview that he likes the fact that the Patriot Act has been amended to provide more judicial oversight before federal agents can look at mail and tap phones. And he said he now opposes the Iraq war because the Bush administration overstated the case against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
"In this case, they trumped up the intelligence and then they didn't have a plan for winning the peace," he said.
Abortion
York said the issue where Conway appears to be most liberal is abortion.
In his 2002 Project Vote Smart questionnaire, Conway said abortions should be legal only during the first trimester, adding that "abortion should be rare, but safe and legal."
But Conway said he opposed public funding for groups that provide abortions, even if that money is used for programs that have nothing to do with abortions.
York criticized Conway for appearing to be of two minds on the issue.
"If the issue is truly about a woman's right to choose, why would Mr. Conway limit her right to the first trimester but not the second and third?" he said. "Does this make Mr. Conway a liberal? Indeed -- just not a very brave one."
By Joseph Gerth
Within two weeks of winning Kentucky's Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, Rand Paul sent out at least four e-mails describing Democratic opponent Jack Conway as "too far left," linking him to "his liberal Washington, D.C., buddies."
But a Courier-Journal review of Conway's public statements over the last decade found that while he does have liberal views on some issues such as abortion rights and health-care reform, his outlook is conservative or moderate on others, including the death penalty and gay marriage.
Even so, political observers -- on both sides of the spectrum -- who reviewed Conway's statements say Paul shouldn't have much trouble labeling Conway as a liberal among Kentucky's generally conservative electorate.
"Taking this entire range of issues into account, I would characterize Jack Conway as a moderate," said Laurie Rhodebeck, a political scientist at the University of Louisville. "There are, however, a few issues that conservatives could effectively use to portray Conway as a liberal."
Among them, Conway has said publicly that he favors abortion rights during the first trimester of pregnancy; backs tougher regulation of business; supports the health-care reform bill that President Barack Obama signed into law earlier this year; wants to end the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay service members; and would expand the federal civil-rights law to add protections based on sexual orientation.
Conversely, Conway as Kentucky's attorney general has sought execution warrants against death-row inmates who have exhausted their appeals; opposed gay marriage; backed mandatory sentences for drug dealers; and cracked down on Internet crime -- positions that moderate his politics.
In 2002, as a candidate for Louisville's 3rd District congressional seat, Conway said he would have voted for President George W. Bush's request to use military force in Iraq, and he supported many provisions of the Patriot Act that gave the federal government expanded power to read people's mail and e-mail and tap their telephones.
"Conway's campaign platform marks him as a fairly typical national Democrat, neither as liberal as the Democrats one sees nominated in coastal states nor as moderate as old-style Southern Democrats," said Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky.
Some of Conway's past statements seem to conflict -- favoring some rights for gays while opposing others, or supporting abortion rights while opposing government payments to groups that perform abortions, even if those funds don't pay for the procedure itself.
Conway said in an interview last week that neither "liberal" nor "conservative" fits him well.
"I consider myself a political moderate," he said. "Fiscally, I can be pretty conservative. I'm pretty conservative, I think, on the 2nd Amendment" to the Constitution, guaranteeing the right to bear arms.
Kentucky voters may agree. A Courier-Journal/WHAS11 Bluegrass Poll, conducted by Survey USA in May, found that 22 percent said Conway was liberal, while 58 percent believed that he was either "moderate" or "other." Thirteen percent said he was conservative.
Gay Rights
Still, conservative voices in Kentucky say they have no doubt that Conway leans left, especially on issues such as gay rights.
The Rev. Hershael York, pastor of Frankfort's Buck Run Baptist Church and a professor at Louisville's Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said that Conway's stance on gay rights is an "obvious and definitive marker of a liberal world view."
During a debate at the University of Louisville April 1, Conway commended Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for "courageously" telling Congress that "it's very difficult to ask someone to deny who they are in order to defend their country ... I look forward to voting to end 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'"
But York says that no one is contending that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" "hasn't worked and allowed gays to serve in the military, only that one of the parties no longer wishes to compromise and now hopes to display a same-sex orientation openly."
During the same debate, Conway advocated for a federal anti-discrimination law protecting gays.
"Here in Louisville, we've adopted a law that basically says when it comes to housing, when it comes to accommodations, when it comes to employment, that we don't discriminate. And you know what? We're a better community for it," he said. "We need in Washington a law that says we're not going to discriminate in jobs, were not going to discriminate in accommodations and we're not going to discriminate in housing."
But Conway also said during the debate that he believes marriage is only between a man and a woman. And, in a recent interview, he refused to say how he voted on the 2004 state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Kentucky.
In a 2007 debate on Kentucky Educational Television during his campaign for attorney general, Conway said he agreed with the ruling by then-Attorney General Greg Stumbo that state universities offering same-sex partner benefits were violating the Kentucky Constitution.
"... The way the universities were offering the benefits was in violation of the 2004 marriage amendment," he said.
Health care
Conway has said he favors the Obama-backed reform measure passed earlier this year; supports an expansion of Medicare; and endorses legislation sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., that required health insurers to provide certain screenings and preventative care for women at little or no cost.
"I'm optimistic that the new exchanges and other provisions are going to do great things to expand coverage and lower costs in the next few years," he said earlier this year in a questionnaire for the website Daily Kos. "I think with an issue as complex as health care the details really matter in terms of how we implement the law. I'm open to considering options like a Medicare buy-in that would bring younger, healthier adults into Medicare, and take advantage of the efficiencies in Medicare's delivery system. My only requirement would be that I want to make sure any changes to Medicare in the future do not diminish benefits for seniors."
In a 2002 KET debate during his congressional bid, Conway said he favored a prescription drug benefit for those on Medicare -- a change subsequently approved by Congress.
On his Facebook page, Conway explained his support for the preventive-care legislation for women by saying: "I strongly believe that to effectively reduce health-care costs over the long term, we must begin to focus on preventative care, rather than sick care."
York said that while Conway's support of health-care reform doesn't necessarily make him a liberal, "One cannot help but wonder in what other areas of life Mr. Conway would be willing to shift primary responsibility from the individual to his government."
But Conway said in his interview with The Courier-Journal that he supported a version of the bill that created insurance exchanges rather than a single-payer system favored by more liberal Democrats: "So I would place myself in the moderate wing of the Democratic Party."
But Voss said Conway's most "radical" position may be his comment to Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel earlier this year in explaining why he refused to join a lawsuit filed mainly by Republican state attorneys general that challenged the federal health-care bill.
"My copy of the Constitution doesn't carry a right not to be insured and that, if you don't carry insurance, you're likely to be some sort of drag on the system," Conway said. "Now, those are not my words, Neil. Those are words of ... Charles Fried, who's a Harvard law professor and Ronald Reagan's solicitor general from 1985 to 1989."
Russell Weaver, a law professor at the University of Louisville, called Conway's statement "overly simplistic. The question is whether the federal government has the constitutional authority to enact this law. The answer to that question is hardly as clear cut or as obvious as Conway suggests."
Conway defended his statement, saying he was paraphrasing Fried.
Immigration
Conway says he favors increased border security and supports giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship -- if they wait in line behind those who came to the United States legally.
In 2002 he told Project Vote Smart, a nonprofit group that compiles candidates' views, that he favored establishing English as the nation's official language and allowing the federal government to collect fingerprint data from everyone who applies for a visa to enter the United States.
In the 2007 KET debate, Conway advocated allowing local police officers to enforce immigration laws against those who commit crimes, and he called for going after employers who hire illegal immigrants.
"The federal government has abrogated responsibility on this critical issue," he said.
But in a recent interview, he raised concerns about Arizona's new immigration law, which the Obama administration is challenging in court.
"I don't think a patchwork system of immigration laws will work," he told Insight's new political blog, cn|2 Politics. "Whatever the merits or the shortcomings of the Arizona law, if Arizona enacts its own law that is different from New Mexico's, you might end up driving business to New Mexico or you might end up pushing in one direction and having an unintended consequence elsewhere."
Conway said in his interview with The Courier-Journal that he generally believes illegal immigrants should be sent back to their home countries, but he doesn't want to break up families by deporting the parents of children born in the United States.
"If you're born on the United States soil, then you're a United States citizen," he said. "I think that's clear."
Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors a tougher immigration policy, said Conway's position "sounds like he has a more common-sense approach than a lot of Democrats have." But he added that Conway needs to flesh out his position for voters.
"It's more important for a candidate to have a clearly defined position on the president's amnesty agenda than any other issue," Dane said. "His constituency will need more crystallization on what he thinks of an amnesty plan."
Taxes
In the 2002 questionnaire for Project Vote Smart, Conway said he favors cutting taxes for those who earn less than $75,000 a year and that he supports lowering inheritance taxes. He also supports increasing the allowable deductions for medical expenses, child tax credits, earned income tax credits and student loans.
And during the KET debate that year with then-U.S. Rep. Anne Northup, a Republican, Conway said he would have supported President George W. Bush's tax cuts.
"I've said I would have done so with some misgivings," he said. "... I have taken some flack from members of my own party for saying that I would have voted for that tax cut, but I would have."
He added, however, that "I'm not going to go to Washington and vote to make permanent tax relief for the wealthiest 1 percent."
In March, on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," Conway called for cutting $200 billion from the federal deficit by allowing Medicare to purchase drugs in bulk and reaping $130 billion from ending offshore tax havens and repealing tax breaks for companies that move jobs offshore.
In his interview, Conway said he doesn't believe that the government should raise taxes on most Americans while the recession continues and he favors a modified federal-estate tax that would affect only about the top 1 percent.
Financial reform
Several times Conway has called for stricter financial regulations, and at least once he urged a government breakup of companies that have grown too large through mergers and acquisitions.
"It used to be that 30 percent control in a particular market triggered an antitrust review. Well, that no longer seems the case," he said in a speech last November in Owensboro. "Competition is a Democratic ideal and a Republican ideal. And if we need to break up some of these companies, to have prudent regulation in our marketplace, then let's do it."
Rhodebeck said this is one area where Conway is significantly more liberal than Paul, a Bowling Green eye doctor, who argues that government should take a "laissez faire" approach to business, allowing the free market to operate.
"He talks about the need for accountability on Wall Street and in businesses like BP," Rhodebeck said. "Considering what has happened in the past two years, one might expect such views to resonate with a public that feels helpless in the face of corporate giants that behave irresponsibly.
"But the idea of government 'intrusion' into the private sector seems to have become a concern, making it easier to spin Conway's comments about business and government as liberal, rather than populist," she said.
In his interview, Conway said some of the banks that were deemed too big to fail should be broken up. Locally, he said, Marathon Oil Co., which controls a large segment of the gasoline market in Northern Kentucky, should be forced to divest of some of its gas stations there.
Jim Waters, the vice president for policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a Bowling Green-based free-market think tank, said Conway's ideas on business indicate that he is a "collectivist" and a "liberal, not in the best sense of the word."
"He would set some arbitrary number or size (of market share) and allow the government to step in and basically destroy business," Waters said. "That is not the way the free-market system works."
National Security
During his 2002 congressional race, Conway said he supported the war in Iraq and favored some provisions of the Patriot Act, which made it easier for government agents to conduct surveillance on American citizens.
According to his Project Vote Smart questionnaire, Conway also favored the use of military tribunals to try suspected terrorists.
"I support the president on Iraq," he said during a 2002 KET interview. "... You have to reach across the aisle in situations like this, and I would have been among the 40 percent of Democrats that voted for the resolution on Iraq."
Ron Ray, a Crestwood lawyer who was deputy assistant defense secretary under President Ronald Reagan, said Conway's analysis of what should have happened before the United States invaded Iraq -- seeking authorization from Congress and gaining the support of other nations -- is based generally on sound constitutional reasoning. But he said he believes Conway ultimately came to the wrong conclusion in supporting the invasion "because we were lied to war" by the Bush administration.
And he said Conway's support for the Patriot Act "doesn't make him a liberal or a conservative, it makes him a big-government guy, and there are plenty of big-government guys in both the Republican and Democratic parties."
Conway said in his Courier-Journal interview that he likes the fact that the Patriot Act has been amended to provide more judicial oversight before federal agents can look at mail and tap phones. And he said he now opposes the Iraq war because the Bush administration overstated the case against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
"In this case, they trumped up the intelligence and then they didn't have a plan for winning the peace," he said.
Abortion
York said the issue where Conway appears to be most liberal is abortion.
In his 2002 Project Vote Smart questionnaire, Conway said abortions should be legal only during the first trimester, adding that "abortion should be rare, but safe and legal."
But Conway said he opposed public funding for groups that provide abortions, even if that money is used for programs that have nothing to do with abortions.
York criticized Conway for appearing to be of two minds on the issue.
"If the issue is truly about a woman's right to choose, why would Mr. Conway limit her right to the first trimester but not the second and third?" he said. "Does this make Mr. Conway a liberal? Indeed -- just not a very brave one."
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posted by KYJurisDoctor at 7:17 PM
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Not everyone has a choice about when they become a parent; one out of every 10 of couples experiences fertility problems. They may have started trying for kids in their 20s, but got nothing but doctors’ appointments and heartache for the next 10 years. Conversely, some couples have “accidents.”
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