by Robert P. George, Princeston University  

John McCain has won the endorsement of some prominent pro-life political leaders. Yet he also has been the cause of some serious headaches for the pro-life movement.

But elections always involve choosing among particular alternatives, rather than insisting on an ideal. And when we look at the alternatives likely in November, it is clear John McCain offers pro-life voters by far the more appealing prospect.

The campaign finance reform legislation McCain sponsored with Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wis.) has placed serious restrictions on the ability of pro-life groups (and others) to exercise their influence. More important, McCain has voted twice to try to overturn President Bush’s embryonic stem-cell funding policy, thus offering what would amount to a taxpayer-funded incentive for the destruction of human embryos for research. Although he has suggested he may be open to rethinking his view as new science demonstrates alternatives to embryo-destruction, he has so far not reversed himself.

For me and other pro-life voters, these are serious concerns. But we must also consider that McCain’s pro-life record as a whole is very strong. It is not the record of a politician hostile to the pro-life cause or generally unreliable on pro-life issues. He may have been led astray on stem-cell research - but he did co-sponsor Sen. Sam Brownback’s bill prohibiting the creation of embryos by cloning for purposes of research in which they are killed. Contrast his position with those of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Both bitterly oppose the Brownback cloning ban and support the funding of embryo-destroying human cloning with taxpayer dollars.

Likewise on the issue of abortion, there is no comparison between McCain’s history of support for the right to life and Clinton’s and Obama’s implacable opposition to it. While he has never been especially outspoken on abortion-related questions (and is rumored to have sometimes opposed bringing pro-life bills forward), there is no denying that his pro-life voting record is strong and consistent. Indeed, it is one of the best in the Senate.

The next president will name several hundred federal judges, probably including two or more Supreme Court justices. Sen. McCain has pledged to nominate judges who will faithfully interpret the Constitution, not legislate from the bench, and he has made clear that he thinks Justices Roberts and Alito are good models. Sens. Clinton or Obama, by contrast, would be certain - I repeat, certain - to nominate judges and justices who reject this view of the judge’s role, and who are deeply committed to maintaining the regime of judicially mandated abortion on demand.