Even Kucinich's own staff doesn't know his position on abortion.
Later in his speech on the House floor, Kucinich lashed out at the partial-birth-abortion-ban's supporters, a group that included 62 Democrats."Advocates of this bill who say they stand in defense of life would be more believable if they worked to support families with adequate child-care funding, child tax-credit relief for vulnerable families, and peace," Kucinich said. "For some, this debate is only about politics. The fact that other abortion legislation, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, has been advanced on the publicity of the Laci Peterson tragedy shows the unfortunate politicization of this debate."
Kucinich's vitriol seems surprising in light of his not-so-distant support of the partial-birth-abortion ban.
Also surprising is that he singled out the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which would make it a federal crime to harm a fetus during the commission of another felony. Kucinich voted for the same bill in both October 1999 and April 2001, the last time the House considered it. The legislation, recently dubbed "Laci and Connor's Law," is now pending in the House and Senate.Many Democrats and pro-choice groups oppose the bill on the grounds that by treating a fetus as a distinct human entity that has a right not to be harmed, the law is paving the way toward outlawing abortion. But Kucinich is hardly a traditional Democrat on this issue. Indeed, he has said he still believes that life begins at conception.
