Baton Rouge, LA — Pro-life advocates took over control of the Senate legislative agenda and gained pro-life votes in the mid-term election. Next month, they could add to that.
Pro-abortion Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu survived her state's unique open primary and advanced to a Dec. 7 runoff, but her re-election bid is about to get a lot more attention. Pro-life state elections commissioner Suzanne Haik Terrell will face Landrieu in the runoff and is sure to be on the receiving end of support from pro-life groups and President Bush.
In the Louisiana primary, all candidates regardless of party run at the same time and a candidate must get a simple majority to win. With all precincts reporting, Democrat Landrieu had 572,681 votes, or 46 percent, and Republican Terrell got 339,045 votes, or 27 percent.
However, two other Republicans, Rep. John Cooksey and state Rep. Tony Perkins, polled 24 percent combined. Terrell is expected to receive support from most of those voters — which, combined with the energy and excitement in the pro-life community following last week's elections, could be enough to help her win a close election.
Terrell said her pro-life position is crystal clear.
“I am a practicing Catholic, and I abide by the tenets of my church,” she said. “And while I respect other churches and other religions and other feelings and other positions, I am pro-life, I am a Catholic and it's as simple as that.”
“I have always been and will always be pro-life,” she said.
Terrell was faced with a situation that prompts some women to have abortions when a physician told her that she was pregnant with a child who could have birth defects. She chose “to have the child that God gave me.”
Terrell said the pro-life movement needs her in Washington, because there is only one other pro-life woman in the Senate.
America's pro-choice culture won't change without “pro-life women making the case,” she said.
Meanwhile, Senator Landrieu has taken a pro-abortion position since her first election.
In 1999, Landrieu voted twice in favor of a resolution endorsing the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized unlimited abortion. She has voted to use taxpayer funds to pay for abortions performed on women in the military and in the health insurance plans of federal employees.
Landrieu also voted against an amendment to require detailed reporting on transactions involving the body parts of babies killed by abortion. Certain firms collect and sell such “fetal tissue” and organs to some unethical medical researchers.
(This article courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
