NARAL Pro-Choice America's political action committee became the first reproductive rights group to endorse President Barack Obama's reelection effort on Tuesday. It timed the endorsement to coincide with National Women's Health Week.
Nancy Keenan, NARAL's president, told The Huffington Post that the organization's strategy moving forward is to draw a contrast between Obama's positions and those of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney on women's health and reproductive choice issues.
"The contrast is clear and it's stark," she said. "The president believes women and doctors should make medical decisions, while Mitt Romney thinks a politician should be in charge. President Obama wants to uphold a woman's right to choose, and we've heard Romney say time and time again that he wants to outlaw abortion.
"And I think most recently as well we've seen that the president made it possible for nearly every woman to get insurance coverage of contraception without a copay, and we have Mr. Romney wanting to take away that contraceptive coverage and even go further and defund family planning. The choice is clear, the contrast is stark, and we're very proud to be the first to endorse the president for reelection."
Keenan, who will be stepping down in January 2013 from her position, said the NARAL PAC will mainly be talking to women voters in battleground states in hopes of drumming up support for Obama, as well as pro-choice candidates in tight races for the House and Senate.
"Obama's been the backstop," she said. "We've been able to have him there to stop some things in the U.S. Senate and all of the rather obnoxious legislation that came out of the House, but obviously he needs some allies in defending women's reproductive rights."
NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC's anti-abortion counterpart, National Right to Life PAC, endorsed Romney in April.
"As the country's most pro-abortion president, Barack Obama has pursued a radical pro-abortion agenda,” Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said in a statement. “It is now time for pro-life Americans to unite behind Mitt Romney. For the sake of unborn children, the disabled, and the elderly, we must win."