I *heart* Eliot Spitzer, and if you live in New York I would very much enourage you to consider him for your vote. He’s pro-choice, and a straight shooter — he doesn’t mess around with semantics trying to please everyone, and he stands up for the human rights of all people. Even better, he has now pledged to approve emergency contraception for over-the-counter dispensal in New York State, something that Gov. Pataki vetoed. The Republican gubernatorial candidates, John Fasso and Patrick Manning, both said that they would have vetoed the bill, just as Pataki did. Fasso even goes a step further in his anti-choice views by saying that he would try and bar Medicaid funding to low-income women in need of the procedure, and would veto any state budget without this restriction. Because, you know, reproductive rights are only for the rich.
And if you’re in Pennsylvania, avoid Lynn Swann. He’s running unopposed in the Republican primary, and has a decent chance of winning — which might be a problem, since he doesn’t seem to understand some basic things about our legal system and our government. He’s apparently under the impression that if Roe is overturned, abortion will be immediately illegal in all 50 states. Which, to be fair, it will be illegal and highly limited in a lot of places, but not immediately outlawed. And Swann has said that, given the opportunity, he would try and outlaw almost all abortions in Pennsylvania. So this guy is probably not someone we should be supporting.
And if you’re in Colorado, you may just be out of luck. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter is anti-choice to the extreme, favoring abortion only in cases of rape, incest, and threat to the woman’s life. He refuses to answer one way or the other when asked if, should Roe be overturned, he would sign a bill illegalizing abortion in Colorado.
Go Spitzer.