Mitt Romney

While polls show him as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts is starting to feel the heat from pro-life leaders.

The Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), a PAC looking to elect pro-life women to office, circulated a pledge to the Republican presidential candidates committing them against naming judicial activists to the federal bench; ensuring that the U.S. attorney general and the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services were pro-life; ending taxpayer funding of abortion and Planned Parenthood; and backing the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Most of the Republican presidential candidates signed the pledge -- save for Romney, former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico and businessman Herman Cain, a favorite of the tea party movement.

“We applaud those candidates who did sign the pledge for vowing to support and advance the protection of life at all stages if elected to the White House,” said SBA List Project Director Marilyn Musgrave, a former congresswoman from Colorado. “Their signatures demonstrate that mere lip-service to protecting women and the unborn is not enough -- it must be backed up by concrete action.”

“The conviction and resolve of these candidates answers grass-roots hunger for authentic leadership,” insisted Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the SBA List. “Any ‘truce’ on social issues is not viable, nor is it acceptable to the grass roots.”

Dannenfelser followed up with a shot at President Barack Obama.

“As one of the most activist presidents on abortion in history protects political allies like Planned Parenthood and continually appoints activist federal judges, the situation demands a strong leader who will advance consensus and life-affirming legislation and policy at all levels,” she added.

Romney defended himself in a piece published by iconic conservative journal National Review.

“I am pro-life and believe that abortion should be limited to only instances of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother,” insisted Romney. “I support the reversal of Roe v. Wade, because it is bad law and bad medicine. Roe was a misguided ruling that was a result of a small group of activist federal judges legislating from the bench.

“I support the Hyde Amendment, which broadly bars the use of federal funds for abortions. And as president, I will support efforts to prohibit federal funding for any organization like Planned Parenthood, which primarily performs abortions or offers abortion-related services,” added Romney. “I will reinstate the Mexico City Policy to ensure that nongovernmental organizations that receive funding from America refrain from performing or promoting abortion services, as a method of family planning, in other countries. This includes ending American funding for any United Nations or other foreign assistance program that promotes or performs abortions on women around the world. I will advocate for and support a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion. And perhaps most importantly, I will only appoint judges who adhere to the Constitution and the laws as they are written, not as they want them to be written.”

Romney noted that he had concerns with the pledge being backed by the SBA List.

“As much as I share the goals of the Susan B. Anthony List, its well-meaning pledge is overly broad and would have unintended consequences,” insisted Romney. “That is why I could not sign it. It is one thing to end federal funding for an organization like Planned Parenthood; it is entirely another to end all federal funding for thousands of hospitals across America. That is precisely what the pledge would demand and require of a president who signed it.