Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's vote this week against abortion funding restrictions in health care legislation brought new attention to an issue that has long complicated her political life.
In her first Senate campaign in 1996, a retired archbishop in her heavily Catholic hometown of New Orleans said voting for her would be a sin. Now in her third term, Landrieu's support for abortion rights — a rare stance among Louisiana politicians of both parties — again faces criticism from abortion opponents.
Her vote Tuesday against an amendment by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., to the health care bill now before the Senate brought immediate condemnation from the state Republican party and anti-abortion organizations that said she broke her own policy against government funding for abortion.
"Forcing the American people to pay for elective abortions is a line that no Louisiana Senator has ever crossed," said former Republican state Rep. Tony Perkins, now president of the conservative Family Research Council in Washington.
Landrieu said she voted against the amendment because she believed it also would take legal abortion coverage out of private insurance policies.
"One of the pledges we made at the start of this debate was that we would ensure that Americans who like their current health coverage would get to keep it," she said in a news release.
A moderate Democrat in a conservative state, Landrieu doesn't always toe the abortion-rights line. She had only a 20 percent rating in an analysis of 2008 Senate abortion votes by the National Abortion Rights Action League, down from 65 percent the year before.
"We don't always agree but we find her to be really thoughtful," NARAL policy director Donna Crane said in a telephone interview.
"She asks fair and tough questions of both sides, which we respect."
Landrieu's vote drew a relatively subdued response from Roman Catholic leaders. Nelson's amendment is supported by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"We agree on many things, but definitely do not agree on the issue of abortion," New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond said in a written response. "I will continue to be in prayerful, open dialogue with Senator Landrieu, and I continue to pray that the sanctity of life will be protected always."
It was a mild chastising compared to statements by Roman Catholic leaders against Landrieu in the past and other politicians who support abortion rights.
Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy has been in a verbal bout for weeks with outspoken Bishop Thomas Tobin, who says he asked Kennedy in 2007 not to receive Holy Communion because of his support for abortion rights. Kennedy also voted against abortion restrictions in the health care legislation in the House.
When Landrieu was running for a vacant Senate seat in 1996, popular retired archbishop Philip Hannan of New Orleans said a vote for her or then-President Bill Clinton would be a sin because of their abortion rights support.
Landrieu narrowly won that race against Republican Woody Jenkins, a leader of anti-abortion forces in the state Legislature. The issue returned six years later.
"As a practicing Catholic, I did not leave my faith, as did Mary Landrieu," Republican Suzanne Haik Terrell said during a close attempt to unseat Landrieu. Her challenger last year was another anti-abortion Republican but the issue rarely came up in the campaign.
Still, pollster and political analyst Bernie Pinsonat questions whether Landrieu can continue to survive politically. It's not just the abortion vote.
Landrieu — who won her Senate seat by margins of less than 1 percent, less than 2 percent and just over 2 percent in the last three elections — is burdened by the lack of popularity of President Barack Obama, who won less than 40 percent of the state's presidential vote.
Votes such as the one she cast to pass his economic stimulus package and another to allow debate on the Senate health care bill will have a detrimental effect, even with her next campaign five years away.
"She's got a very unpopular Barack Obama and she's following him down the road," Pinsonat said.
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