Sharon Gray once supported Daschle; now is working "doubly hard" to defeat him

At my request, SDP reader Sharon Gray of Vermillion, SD, submitted the following opinion piece, which details Sharon's story about working to elect Senator Daschle early in his career. At the time, Daschle convinced Sharon he was pro-life, but now it has become abundantly clear to her that he is pro-choice. Here's Sharon's opinion piece:

First, let me start by saying I am an unabashedly single-issue voter. I truly believe that without a right to life, no other right matters. We currently live in a country where more than 1 in 5 pregnancies ends in abortion. At least 95% of those abortions are for reasons OTHER than rape, incest, or to protect the life or health of the mother. There are more than 1.2 million abortions in the U.S per year. That is more than 3000 abortions per day. The supposed “right” to abortion through all nine months of a pregnancy is a tragic result of judicial law-making, rather than law-interpreting (through the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton U.S. Supreme Court decisions), which federally foisted abortion on demand on all 50 states, regardless of existing state law.

With that said, I am ashamed to admit I worked to help Tom Daschle get elected when he first ran for Senate many years ago. I did so gullibly believing his assertion (along with the blessing of the Presentation Sisters) that he was pro-life. Imagine my horror and regret as I watched him repeatedly toe the NARAL (National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) line. Writing letters got me the typical response pro-choice-voting candidates give their pro-life constituency explaining his “personal” dislike of abortion but his belief that the choice should reside with the mother. It is inconsequential what a candidate’s “personal” feelings are on the issue of abortion; what matters is how the candidate votes. A pro-life candidate is one who votes pro-life. A pro-choice candidate is one who votes pro-choice. I am infuriated by Daschle’s attempt to disingenuously straddle the fence when he so CLEARLY votes pro-choice. He knows good and well this state is overwhelmingly pro-life. He knows he must go to great lengths to persuade voters that his “personal” pro-life sentiments (even allowing they are genuine) are enough.

In the Sunday (10/3/04) Argus Leader, Representative Mel Olson (a Democrat from Mitchell) said he believed Senator Tom Daschle would like to find a way to outlaw abortion as birth control. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Once again, Daschle was being painted as a pro-lifer at heart. This blatantly misleads voters! I should know: I was one of those misled voters many years ago.

Daschle voted six times against the partial-birth abortion ban, a horrific procedure which in sworn testimony to Congress doctors have said is unnecessary and which is almost always performed on healthy fetuses of healthy mothers. He voted for a substitute amendment that would have killed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which gives protection of law to a fetus killed in commission of a federal crime. He wants to use taxpayers’ money to fund abortions for low-income women. He supports embryonic stem cell research, in which we cannibalistically destroy human embryos to “harvest” their stem cells ignoring the scientific success of NON-destructive, ETHICAL stem cell research using umbilical cord stem cells, for instance. Most disturbingly, however, Daschle has repeatedly acted in an obstructionist manner, preventing fully-qualified judicial nominees from getting a Senate vote unless they passed the litmus test of being pro-choice.

I extremely regret my work years ago to get Daschle elected. To try and make amends, I am working DOUBLY hard to effect his defeat. I hope and pray South Dakotans are more wise to his tactics than I was so many years ago.

Here is a screen capture of Daschle's mass fundraising e-mail on behalf of NARAL, which I took from this website:

Compare Daschle's NARAL e-mail to the letter sent on behalf of Daschle in 1986 by Rev. Terry Miller of Freeman, SD, in which Rev. Miller says Daschle used the word "murder" to describe abortion in a conversation they had. (You can read all of Daschle's pro-life letters HERE.) Rev. Miller's letter was sent along with a companion letter written by Daschle saying "I am unalterably opposed to abortion on demand":