From AlterNet
By Cristina Page

With detractors like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rick Santorum, Tom Delay and James Dobson, most thinking people might conclude that John McCain comes highly recommended. But just because John McCain is an enemy of some of our most cartoonish villians does not make him a friend. This is most true on reproductive health issues.

Pro-choice Americans haven’t yet pegged McCain as the extreme anti-choice copy of George W. Bush he is. For close watchers of pro-choice politics though, he’s John McSame.

In fact, the Straight Talk Express has skidded off the road that most Americans drive. He is more extreme than even some who consider themselves “pro-life.” For example, most Americans would be stunned to learn McCain won’t — or can’t — say whether he even supports the right to use contraception. Last March, according to the New York Times, McCain fumbled through this exchange about contraception with a reporter aboard his campaign bus;

“Reporter: “Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?”

Mr. McCain:

“Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes — and I was just reading the thing he wrote — that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, then he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it.”

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