The abortion Mitt doesn't want to talk about

In a 1994 Senate debate with Ted Kennedy, Mitt Romney revealed a startling chapter from his past: A close relative had died many years earlier in a botched illegal abortion, shaping Romney's stance in favor of safe and legal access to abortion for all women. The relative he was referring to was a Detroit woman named Ann Keenan, the sister of Romney's brother-in-law and died at the age of 21 in 1963, a full decade before Roe v. Wade. An investigation by Salon has uncovered details about her life and death, including: how she died (an infection); that her grief-stricken parents asked for memorial donations to be made to Planned Parenthood; and that the family apparently wanted to keep the death quiet because Romney's politically ambitious father, George, was then governor of Michigan.

. . . A brief death notice in the Detroit News merely that Keenan died "suddenly," but her parents added that "Memorial tributes may be sent to the Planned Parenthood Association." Planned Parenthood was at that time an organization focused exclusively on birth control and family planning; abortions, of course, were not yet legal. But the group had sponsored a conference several years earlier supporting liberalization of abortion laws.

. . . His mother Lenore Romney's 1970 campaign for the U.S. Senate in Michigan took place seven years after Ann Keenan's death and three years before Roe. An old platform document from his mother's campaign offers a muddled-sounding position: "I support and recognize the need for more liberal abortion rights while reaffirming the legal and medical measures needed to protect the unborn and pregnant woman [sic]."

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