Anchorage Daily News

Democratic candidate Tony Knowles' campaign sent 8,000 letters to pro-abortion-rights voters this month. The message: Republican Sarah Palin isn't one of them.

Drawing the abortion debate to the surface of this year's governor race, the letter comes with an envelope for mailing back a check and describes the election as "a choice about choice itself."

The Knowles campaign paid for the note, which also accuses Palin, who is anti-abortion but has won support from not only conservatives but many moderates, of refusing to say whether she'd block or support an abortion ban if elected.

Palin countered in an interview this week that her beliefs have been clear all along and that it's divisive of the Knowles camp to resurrect an issue that's really for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide, not the governor of Alaska.

"I think it's a shame ... that anyone would try to make this issue a headline, banner issue in the campaign when it's not," she said.

The Knowles letter quotes a 2002 e-mail from Palin to Alaska Right to Life Board describing herself as "pro-life as a candidate can be."

This summer, in a candidate survey by the anti- abortion Alaska Family Council, Palin answered "Yes" to the question: "Would you support legislation and/or a constitutional amendment to clarify that the state constitution does not contain a right to abortion?"

As to what she'd do as governor, Palin said, "I would side on the side of life if legislation were passed by the people's representatives in the state of Alaska, the Legislature, but ... there is no law that I could sign in office that could ever supersede the Supreme Court's ruling."

Knowles describes abortion as a private matter between a woman and her doctor.

Andrew Halcro, who is running for governor as an independent, said banning abortion is unrealistic and doesn't work.

"You can't close you eyes and ignore the social problems in the state," he said.

Halcro called the letter an attempt to show Palin's views are outside the mainstream.

But when it comes to actually making laws, does it matter what the governor thinks about abortion?

In its mailing, the Knowles camp says that with a Republican in the governor's office and a Republican-led majority in the state Legislature, "anti-choice bills have been passing at a rate of about one each year."

This year, the state passed a law that makes it a separate crime to harm a fetus when a woman is attacked. Critics said the bill could set a precedent for challenging legalized abortion.

Michael Macleod-Ball, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, said there's no reason to believe lawmakers won't continue to propose what he calls restrictions on reproductive rights.

Palin said potential abortion-related questions, such as whether the state should require girls to get parental consent, have already been addressed in Alaska.

The Knowles campaign letter points to South Dakota as an example of a state that bucked Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion across the country, and says other states are pondering a similar move. The South Dakota law bans all abortions except when the life of the mother is threatened, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Macleod-Ball said it would take a constitutional amendment to create a similar law in Alaska, requiring approval by two-thirds of the Legislature and a majority of voters.

Karen Lewis is the executive director of Alaska Right to Life, a group that opposes abortion and endorsed Palin even before her primary election victory over incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski.

Lewis said that as far as she knows, no one in Alaska has proposed a law similar to the South Dakota ban. But the U.S. Supreme Court is only one justice away from a vote that could allow each state to decide for itself whether to allow abortion, she said.

"At this point, we're one short of the vote going the pro-life way," she said.

Whether the governor is anti-abortion makes a difference because he or she can veto legislation, said both Lewis and one of her opponents, Alaska Women's Lobby and Planned Parenthood of Alaska lobbyist Caren Robinson.

Polls soon after the August primary showed Palin with a sizable lead over Knowles, the former two-term governor. One of the polls indicated Palin, a former Wasilla mayor, was popular not only with Republicans but with voters registered as nonpartisans as well.

In a survey conducted in August, independent polling firm SurveyUSA asked 600 adult Alaskans to rate the job that Gov. Frank Murkowski is doing in office. The results weren't surprising -- Murkowski had a low approval rating the month Palin defeated him -- but the survey also tracked whether the people who responded are "pro-choice" (58 percent) or "pro-life" (34 percent).

Those numbers are similar to a survey Anchorage pollster and public-opinion researcher Jean Craciun conducted in 2004, in which 55 percent of people surveyed said they would be more likely to support a candidate who is pro-choice, Craciun said.

Still, Lewis -- the head of Alaska Right to Life -- said she believes voters who oppose abortion are more likely to vote for a candidate based solely on his or her stance on the issue when compared with voters who support legalized abortion.

"There are quite a few people that vote solely on that as their number one issue," she said.

Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins can be reached at khopkins@adn.com.

For more on the race for governor, including past stories and links to candidates' Web sites, log on to

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What the candidates say ASK THE CANDIDATES: What do you want to know from the people who want to be Alaska's next governor? We're asking them a series of questions and want your help. We'll publish their answers in the days leading to the Nov. 7 general election. Send suggestions to local news editor David Hulen at

dhulen@adn.com

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