Republicans Face Abortion Issue at RNC

MarketWatch (WSJ): Palin's Daughter's Pregnancy Puts Abortion in Spotlight:

Family-values voters have a lot to digest as the Republican national convention gets under way. Sen. John McCain’s newly chosen running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said Monday that her 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant and plans to both keep the baby and marry the father...

The timing of the announcement also comes as Republicans gather to ratify their positions on controversial issues such as abortion, which isn’t unanimous within the party....

One of the items on Monday’s agenda is solidifying the party platform, which includes a harder line on abortion than even McCain has taken. The platform calls for opposing it in all cases and supporting a constitutional ban on abortion with no exceptions for rape, incest or threats to the life of the mother, a position Palin supports.

Palin may appeal to social conservatives and the religious right, but her pro-life stance likely will prove too extreme to lure many of the disaffected Hillary Clinton primary voters McCain is angling for. Female voters who want to uphold Roe vs. Wade may not be as moved by the Palin family’s personal choices and may see them as the exception and not the rule when it comes to their ability to avoid a cycle of poverty that unwanted pregnancy often begins or continues.

See also New York Times: Palin Daughter's Pregnancy Interrupts Script, by Monica Davey:

In 2002, when Ms. Palin was completing her second and final term as mayor, her husband’s stepmother, Faye Palin, began campaigning to succeed her. Faye Palin, though, favored abortion rights, people who recalled the race said, and Ms. Palin sided instead with Dianne M. Keller, a City Council member who won the race and remains mayor there today.