Bob Ehrlich gets a very special tape

When Governor-elect Bob Ehrlich was only gubernatorial candidate Bob Ehrlich, he received a half-hour audio tape made just for him by the skilled pro-life apologist Scott Klusendorf.

He also got many phone calls from pro-lifers urging him to listen to the tape, which presented the rational argument against abortion, and take it to heart.

The man who conceived and engineered this scenario was pro-life attorney Steve Peroutka.

"When it became apparent that we weren't going to have a pro-life candidate for governor, I decided the next best thing to ask for was a miracle," he explains.

GOV. ELECT BOB EHRLICH

To ask for a miracle with Planned Parenthood's darling, candidate Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, was asking too much, Steve reasoned; better to focus his hopes on Ehrlich.

"Everybody told me what a great guy he was. They said he was a 'pragmatic pro-choicer'"‹that he had no strong conviction behind his stance.

Steve met him on the golf course, "when he was still 10 or 12 points behind in the polls.

"I told him, 'You're possibly going to be governor; you may have the fate of hundreds of thousands of people in your hands. You had better decide whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, and have good reasons for it."

Steve got Ehrlich to agree to listen to a tape, which he commissioned Scott Klusendorf to make for him.

Then he made about 5,000 copies of the tape and sent it to members of the Knights of Columbus and other organizations all over the state.

He asked them to listen to it, and then call or write Ehrlich and urge him to listen to it too.

"Everyone considered it the best pro-life argument they ever heard," says Steve.

What did Ehrlich think of it?

Steve doesn't know. But he was told by Ehrlich's spokesman, Paul Schurick, that Ehrlich did indeed listen to it.

"I believe his heart is changeable," says Steve.

"If it isn't, four years from now, we should be in a different position than we were for this election, with no real pro-life gubernatorial candidate.

"If Bob Ehrlich is not pro-life, we've got to start getting a pro-life candidate right now."