National Right to Life & Kentucky Right to Life:
Bevin is “trying to mislead pro-life voters” and “distort” Mitch McConnell’s pro-life leadership

WASHINGTON – Today, leaders of National Right to Life and Kentucky Right to Life sharply criticized a mailer sent to Kentucky voters by Matt Bevin’s campaign, which questioned Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s strong commitment to the pro-life cause.

Both National Right to Life and Kentucky Right to Life reaffirmed their unwavering support of Sen. McConnell for re-election in a joint statement last month.

“Matt Bevin is trying to mislead pro-life voters,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “No U.S. senator has done more for unborn children than Mitch McConnell.”

“We have worked with Sen. McConnell for decades and he has always been a loyal friend of the unborn and medically vulnerable,” said Margie Montgomery, executive director of Kentucky Right to Life. “Any attempt to distort Sen. McConnell’s pro-life record is at best ignorant, and at worst, dishonest.”

Sen. McConnell has been a key supporter of every major pro-life initiative to come before the U.S. Senate during his tenure, including current legislation, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1670), to protect unborn children at 20 weeks, a point by which the unborn child is capable of experiencing great pain when being killed by dismemberment or other late abortion techniques. Just last month, he called on his Senate colleagues to pass the bill.

Sen. McConnell has been a consistent supporter of the Hyde Amendment, which prevents government funding of most abortions in the Medicaid program, and which is estimated to have saved more than one million unborn children. Sen. McConnell also strongly supported an amendment sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) that would have amended Obamacare to prevent the imposition of regulatory mandates that violate the religious or moral convictions of those who purchase or provide health insurance.

In addition, McConnell has been the Senate's chief defender of the First Amendment right of citizen groups to communicate with the public about the positions and voting records of those who hold or seek public office, and a courageous foe of attempts to curb that right under the guise of "campaign finance reform."

National Right to Life Legislative Director Douglas Johnson has said, "Mitch McConnell is the single greatest obstacle in the U.S. Senate to the relentless efforts of an avidly pro-abortion President to radically expand the power of federal bureaucrats, pack the U.S. Supreme Court with robed social engineers, and strip away protections from unborn children and from the medically vulnerable."

Both Tobias and Montgomery reiterated that endorsements made by the organization Northern Kentucky Right to Life (which Bevin cites in the mailer) do not represent National Right to Life or Kentucky Right to Life. Northern Kentucky Right to Life is not affiliated with either National Right to Life, the oldest and largest national pro-life organization in the country, or Kentucky Right to Life, the state affiliate of National Right to Life and the oldest and largest statewide pro-life organization in the Bluegrass State.

“The choice for pro-life voters in Kentucky on May 20th is clear: a vote for Mitch McConnell is a vote for life,” Montgomery added.

Involved in every election since Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency, National Right to Life Political Action Committee (NRL PAC) was formed in 1979 as the political arm of National Right to Life. Founded in 1968, National Right to Life, the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement, NRLC works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.

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