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By GEORGE BOWLES
Any political race is likely to be replete with attacks and counterattacks which bend and twist the truth until its tortured countenance can hardly be recognized. The presently budding campaign for governor in the Commonwealth is proving to be no exception.
Although the formal gubernatorial contest is just getting under way, both Republican Wyatt Durrette and Democrat Gerald Baliles are blasting away at each other with two charges which, on examination, can most charitably be described as bunk.
Let’s first look at the Baliles charge against Durrette.
One of the staples of Durrette’s effort is that he is strongly and uncompromisingly against abortion. Indeed, so unyielding is his commitment to the anti-abortion movement that he says if one of his daughters were made pregnant by a rapist, he would want her to carry the fetus to term.
Baliles, however, charges that this represents a change of position on Durrette’s part, and that he has flip-flopped on the abortion issue. According to Baliles, when Durrette was a member of the House of Delegates ifi the early 1970s he did not hold such strong pro-life views and had actually sponsored pro-abortion legislation.
In the 1974 legislative session, Durrette was, in fact, chief patron of House Bill 972, a measure which had strong bipartisan support. It authorized abortion on demand during the first trimester of pregnancy, spelled out when it could be performed in the second trimester and limited its use during the third trimester to cases in which the mother’s life was in danger. The measure also made it a misdemeanor to encourage a person to have an abortion and set forth a number of restrictions and regulations governing the abortion procedure.
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