Stories

Following up on an Iowa Independent interview with Dave Leach, the Des Moines resident with ties to the man charged with killing Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller, The Des Moines Register reports that Leach could never attack an abortion provider because he doesn’t know enough about guns:
“You have to have some ability to pull off [...]

Many issues and factors influenced the outcome of the 2008 general election, both nationally and on the local level, but this year, in Iowa at least, social conservatism — especially as it pertains to issues of reproductive health and abortion — seemed to carry less sway than in campaigns past.

Steve Roberts, a man who was elected to represent Iowa Republicans for years on the Republican National Committee, believes that a state GOP official’s affiliation with an independent anti-abortion group that does not toe the party line presents a clear conflict of interest.

[Commentary] Boston Globe columnist Peter Canellos recently wrote a thought-provoking piece titled "Riding the antiabortion tide." The news peg is the mini-controversy over whether former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, the "Law and Order" actor, once lobbied in support of abortion rights. 
Canellos writes:
The sheer number of Republican leaders who've morphed from abortion-rights defenders to strict moral [...]

With hopes of gaining the support of influential social conservatives for his presidential campaign, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney regularly denounces the “cesspool” of pornography on the campaign trail. But recently, those would be supporters have been grumbling that Romney did not do enough to shut down hardcore movie options in Marriott hotels while he [...]

If former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson lobbied for an abortion rights group while still claiming to be personally opposed to abortion, it would be an obstacle to gaining support among the anti-abortion community, according to Kim Lehman, president of the Iowa Right to Life Committee.