Politico: Former NARAL Head Rips Pike

Former NARAL head rips Pike, backs Trivedi
By: Zeeshan Aleem

Former NARAL President Kate Michelman is endorsing Manan Trivedi in the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 6th congressional district, citing concerns over opponent Doug Pike’s "disturbing" comments about women in the 1980s.

Pike – who has expressed support for abortion rights during the campaign – wrote in a 1988 Philadelphia Inquirer article that the abortion rate should "turn the stomachs” of Roe v. Wade supporters, and in 1990 backed the reelection of a Pennsylvania state rep. he himself described as a "zealous opponent of abortion.”

"Whether Pike says he’s pro-choice or not, I as a woman would not trust that he understands and respects the fundamental rights of women in a way that will result in his standing for and protecting those rights,” Michelman, who served as NARAL’s president for 19 years, told POLITICO Wednesday.

"Doug Pike has been publicly and proudly pro-choice in his writings for 19 years and as a candidate for Congress has been rated 100% pro-choice by NARAL Pro-Choice America,” replied Andrew Eldredge-Martin, Pike’s campaign manager. "For anyone to suggest that Doug has not been consistent in his pro-choice views is nothing more than an effort to mislead voters."

Eldredge-Martin added that "[e]ven though Doug is strongly pro-choice, he has not used the issue as a litmus test for supporting candidates.”

NARAL does not usually endorse in primaries, and has not backed either of the two Democrats vying to challenge four-term GOP Rep. Jim Gerlach.

But Michelman said she was astonished by the "values and philosophy that undergird [Pike’s] views,” pointing to two articles he wrote in the 1980s for the Orlando Sentinel.

In 1987, Pike wrote that "[t]he best looking women ... tend not to identify with have-nots," and asked: "Why are women who look like models virtually incapable of developing the compassionate liberalism of, say, stubby Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland?”

And in another 1987 piece about the then-rumored affair between Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Gary Hart and Donna Rice, Pike wrote, "[i]f a woman handicapped by blond hair came to my home, I too would want her to wait way past sunset and sneak out the back entrance."

Andrew Eldredge-Martin said that "[o]ver 20 years ago, Doug made a poor attempt at humor in a column. He regrets it and apologizes."

But the 1980s, said Michelman, "wasn’t Neanderthal time. There was a lot of consciousness-raising about the role and status of women at that time."