National Right to Life creates super-PAC to battle Obama

A prominent anti-abortion-rights group has created a super-PAC to take on President Obama in 2012.

The National Right to Life’s political action committee, dubbed the Victory Fund, will focus primarily on defeating Obama and electing a “pro-life president,” according to David O’Steen, the group's executive director.

“The challenge posed by Obama is the greatest danger we’ve ever [faced]. We see this as the greatest challenge to abortions since Roe v. Wade,” O’Steen said, referring to the Supreme Court decision. 

The super-PAC plans to support whichever Republican candidate ends up winning the nomination, O’Steen said, including Mitt Romney, who at one point in his political career favored abortion rights. 

“His pro-life position is not recent, and he has explained how he came to that decision when he had to approach the decision of killing human embryos for research in Massachusetts,” O’Steen said of Romney.

While the super-PAC’s main goal is to defeat Obama, O’Steen said it might play a role in congressional elections, too. The older National Right to Life PAC, listed as a “lobbyist/registrant PAC,” will also remain active in congressional elections.

O’Steen declined to comment on what the super-PAC’s fundraising targets would be or where the group might look for financial support.

“We never discuss our political strategy before we implement it,” he told The Hill.

The victory fund’s treasurer is Joseph Landrum, who is also registered with the commission as the treasurer for the pre-existing political action committee. 

As a super-PAC, the National Right to Life Victory Fund “will not use [unlimited funds] to make contributions, whether direct, in-kind, or via coordinated communications, to federal candidates or committees,” Landrum’s letter to the commission states.