Is Tim Kaine Really Pro-life?

Cortney O'Brien | July 28, 2016 9:30 AM

Hillary Clinton's new running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) has claimed to be pro-life. As a "traditional Catholic," it's a personal matter to him, he's insisted. When he was governor of Virginia, he supported parental consent laws for young women seeking abortions as well as a partial-birth abortion ban. In 2005, before he ran for governor, he supported abstinence education.

Yet, pro-life groups have been quick to point out that once Kaine entered the U.S. Senate, everything changed. Since 2012, he has a voting record that has earned him a 100 percent rating from the pro-abortion group NARAL.

The Susan B. Anthony List released a statement over the weekend arguing the Clinton-Kaine ticket could not be more "pro-abortion extreme." Kaine, the group points out, refused to support the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act and the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the latter of which prohibits late-term abortions after five months, while serving in the Senate.

If these stark flip flops didn't convince you that Kaine is all talk and no action when it comes to being "pro-life," consider that Tuesday night he reversed his position on the Hyde Amendment. Hyde is common sense legislation that prevents taxpayers from funding abortions. While the Virginia senator had before opposed it, this week he decided he's fine with it.

“You cannot be ‘personally’ opposed to the destruction of innocent human life and take no action to stop it," SBA List Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement Wednesday. "Voters should not be fooled by Tim Kaine. There is no daylight between him and Hillary Clinton on this issue. They are absolute extremists pushing the Democratic Party further and further left on abortion, alienating the one-third of Democrats who call themselves pro-life."