Abortion group targeting just a few voters

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- A major U.S. abortion-rights organization is appealing to a select group of 300,000 women in 25 swing counties to vote for President Barack Obama in November.

NARAL Pro-Choice America says it will spend $2.5 million to $3 million to convince these disaffected "Obama defectors" to once again vote for the president, Roll Call reported Thursday.

The campaign will get under way next month, with 1.2 million pieces of mail sent to women believed to support abortion rights in counties including Fairfax and Loudoun in Virginia; Adams and Denver in Colorado; Cuyahoga and Franklin in Ohio; and Hillsborough and Pinellas in Florida.

"We think these 25 counties are the ones that are going to decide this election," NARAL Political Director Elizabeth Shipp said Wednesday.

NARAL's anti-abortion opponents are employing a similar strategy.

Marilyn Musgrave, vice president of government affairs for the Susan B. Anthony List, just completed a bus tour of five states and 30 cities where she highlighted what she called Obama's "extreme" position on abortion.

"I'm out there talking about Obamacare, the largest expansion of abortion since Roe vs. Wade," she said.

NARAL got a wave of cash donations after Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo. -- the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate -- commented that women who were victims of "legitimate" rape didn't need abortions because their bodies would refuse to conceive.