NARAL endorses Obama

From the endorsement:

“Today, NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC is proud to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president. Sen. Obama has been a strong advocate for a woman’s right to choose throughout his career in public office. He steadfastly supports and defends a woman’s right to make the most personal, private decisions regarding her reproductive health without interference from government or politicians.
“Sen. Obama has been a leader on this issue in the United States Senate. Since joining the Senate in 2005, he has worked to unite Americans on both side of this debate behind commonsense, common-ground ways to prevent unintended pregnancy. Sen. Obama supports legislation to provide our teens with comprehensive sex education, prevent pharmacies from denying women access to their legal birth-control prescriptions, and increase access to family-planning services.

Ellen Malcolm of EMILY’s List was not pleased. She released the following statement today:

“I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton – who held up the nomination of a FDA commissioner in order to force approval of Plan B and who spoke so eloquently during the Supreme Court nomination about the importance of protecting Roe vs. Wade – to not give her the courtesy to finish the final three weeks of the primary process. It certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them.”

Though Malcolm has been hitting this theme pretty hard lately, I have a hard time seeing NARAL’s endorsement as a betrayal. It looks to me like they simply came to terms with the delegate count.
NARAL president Nancy Keenan took pains to note Clinton’s excellent record on choice:

“Americans have been fortunate to have two fully pro-choice candidates in the race for the Democratic nomination. But only one can go forward to the general election. It is truly historic for us to have these two outstanding candidates in the race.”

Unlike EMILY’s List, NARAL has no stated commitment to supporting female pro-choice politicians. As Keenan says, Clinton and Obama both have phenomenal records on this issue. If NARAL truly believed Obama to be the superior candidate on choice, they could have made this endorsement months ago. (Such a move would have been far more damaging to Clinton.) I do have to ask, though, why NARAL chose to endorse now rather than, say, after one of the candidate has officially dropped out?
I wonder if NARAL is going to lose donor support over this move. I’ve gotta believe that a lot of NARAL’s core donors are Clinton supporters. Also, is this a bad move in general because it’s likely to be spun, in the media, as a “catfight” between pro-choice organizations? Other groups, such as the National Women’s Political Caucus, have chastised NARAL’s endorsement because they “believe that this announcement at this time will divide the choice community at a time when we need to stand united.” Similar themes are popping up in this comment thread over at Blog for Choice.
Thoughts, y’all? (Please, please keep it civil. Both Clinton and Obama supporters are participants in this blog community. Be kind.)

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