“Recommended by Vermont Right to Life Committee.”
Those are the words under the name of Phil Scott, the Republican candidate for governor, in a recently distributed campaign brochure from an arm of Planned Parenthood. The brochure says that when it comes to abortion rights, of the two candidates, Scott and Democrat Sue Minter, “only one trusts you completely to make your own health care decisions.”
Next to Minter’s name is a checkmark; for Scott, there’s an X.
Planned Parenthood Vermont Action Fund, a political action committee, is largely funded by the national Democratic Governors Association. It has spent more than $400,000 on advertising targeting Scott.
To Sharon Toborg of Vermont Right to Life, the ads are unfair and any suggestion that Scott is pro-life is absurd.
She said her organization’s support for him has been blown out of proportion. The “recommendation,” she said, is far short of an endorsement. The organization reviewed the record of the two candidates and suggested in a mailer which one of the two would be more acceptable, she said. It has issued similar “recommendations” for Scott dating back to 2010, when he was first elected lieutenant governor.
Toborg, the group’s treasurer, said Planned Parenthood and pro-choice supporters are using her group to “gin up” a false controversy over abortion rights when it’s not a pressing issue in Vermont.
In this week’s “Digger Dialogue,” Toborg insisted Scott has been unfairly portrayed as a pro-life candidate who would do her organization’s bidding.
Scott says he is pro-choice. At a recent debate with Minter, he complained he was “pro-choice, but not pro-choice enough.”
What Planned Parenthood and others point to is Scott’s support as a legislator for parental notification, which Toborg said made Scott more appealing to her group than Minter. To Toborg, supporting parental notification hardly makes Scott pro-life. To some, including Rep. Mary Sullivan, a Burlington Democrat who favors Minter, supporting parental notification is “crossing a line.”
Scott has also spoken out against certain late-term abortion procedures and using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions.
“What is really stunning, though, is that Phil Scott is a pro-choice candidate and Planned Parenthood is spending multiple times what they spent against Brian Dubie and he was an actual pro-life candidate,” Toborg said.
Dubie, a four-term Republican lieutenant governor, lost the governor’s race to Democrat Peter Shumlin in 2010. Shumlin is pro-choice.
“I think it might suggest they don’t have much else they think can help them to defeat Phil Scott,” she said of the Democrats. “And I’m not sure what they are doing now is really going to help them in a way they might think.”
The Vermont Democratic Party has demanded Scott pull advertisements where he defends himself on the abortion issue and renounce the recommendation from Vermont Right to Life. In one ad, former Montpelier lobbyist Candy Moot, a former member of the Planned Parenthood board, says Scott’s position has been distorted, that the Planned Parenthood ads are a “lie” and Scott is pro-choice.
Scott spokesperson Brittney Wilson said the candidate does not embrace the positions of Vermont Right to Life but would not renounce its support or take down the ads.
“He sympathizes with everybody’s points of view,” Wilson said. “You have an organization that supports — that’s pro-life. That is not dangerous or harmful, in some respect, to other people. I think it’s — I don’t see this being a group that he would say, ‘Absolutely not, stay away.’”
Asked why she was bothered by the Planned Parenthood brochure when its contents were accurate, Toborg, who grew up in Waterbury and began her right-to-life efforts while a student at Princeton University, said: “It doesn’t take in the full context. It creates a false impression of where Phil Scott is on the issue.”
Vermont Right to Life, she said, is not pushing for changes to the abortion laws in Vermont. Toborg said Vermont abortion protections predate Roe v. Wade and therefore an overturning at the federal level would not make abortion illegal. Also, she said, there is no political will to implement restrictions under the Golden Dome.
Planned Parenthood, she said, is trying to create the impression abortion rights are about to be “extinguished.”
Toborg said Vermont Right to Life plans to spend about $5,000 on mailers to its 10,000 contributors this election season.
A Right to Life postcard obtained Wednesday by Seven Days contained the following message:
“While Phil Scott is pro-choice, he has consistently stated his support for some key pro-life legislative initiatives, such as parental notification and limits on late-term abortions. His Democrat opponent, Sue Minter, is endorsed by pro-abortion and pro-assisted suicide PACs. She would govern in lock step with the powerful abortion lobby, while Phil Scott would approach issues with a more open mind.”
The organization has one full-time employee, Mary Hahn Beerworth, the executive director. Toborg is a volunteer.
“What we are looking at here in Vermont is continuing to inform people about abortion and alternatives to abortion and encouraging them to make choices both mothers and their babies can live with,” Toborg said.
The number of abortions has declined significantly, she said. There were typically 3,600 abortions yearly in Vermont in the early 1990s. Now there are about 1,300 a year, she said. Vermont health statistics show there was a total of 1,236 abortions in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available.
