Gingrich’s Daughter Decries GOP Anti-Abortion Stance

A daughter of House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich publicly broke with her father Tuesday and urged the GOP to reject the anti-abortion stance it has embraced since 1980.

“If the Republican Party is to appeal to young people in general, and specifically to women, we must throw off this stranglehold that the anti-choice movement has on the apparatus of the party,” said Kathy Gingrich Lubbers.

Lubbers, 29, a Greensboro, N.C., businesswoman, said her father was “very supportive” of her decision to make public her opposition to the Republican platform that reflects the anti-abortion views of President Bush--and her father.

“He has never, never attempted to silence me, unlike the current action of the Republican platform committee,” she said.

“Our family is big enough to encompass both sides of this issue and I would only hope that our party is just as big.”

Lubbers appeared at a news conference called by the National Republican Coalition for Choice, which is trying to force the party to adopt an abortion-rights platform at the GOP convention in Houston.

Gingrich, who was in Georgia awaiting the outcome of a recount that Tuesday confirmed his victory in last week’s 6th District GOP primary, said that while he disagrees with his daughter on abortion, “both my family and my party are strong enough to have healthy, spirited debates, even about the most sensitive of topics.”

The Georgia recount showed Gingrich won by 980 votes, the same margin initially reported.

Challenger Herman Clark picked up 17 votes in the recount, but so did Gingrich. He finished with 35,699 votes, or 51%, to Clark’s 34,719 votes, or 49%.

In Minneapolis, meanwhile, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs endorsed the Democratic ticket and specifically noted the Republicans’ anti-abortion stand.

“If the Republican Party does not change its platform on the choice issue and all the other women’s issues . . . they are going to lose women’s votes,” said federation president Pat Taylor.