Phyllis Schlafly is president of Eagle Forum.

NR: There were reports this week that the Republican Coalition for Choice, among others, is promising a platform fight, as they do every year, at the Republican convention this summer. Do anticipate that there will be a big struggle to try to get the constitutional ban out of the platform?

Phyllis Schlafly: They make a fight at every convention, so we do anticipate a fight. I’m sure we will win again.

NR: Do you have any reason to believe that Bush isn’t committed to keeping the plank exactly as is?

Schlafly: George W. Bush has repeatedly said on television that he wants the pro-life plank in the platform to remain as it is. I’ve seen him say that again and again on television. I cannot believe that he would backtrack from that position.

NR: There’s no reason for pro-lifers to be concerned then?

Schlafly: Well, there will be about 2,000 delegates. We have to be prepared for the pro-abortionists in the party who always have the backing of the media. It really is very divisive of them to kick up a prime-time fight on this issue because previous conventions show that the overwhelming majority of Republicans are pro-life.

NR: How much of the fight is fueled by the media?

Schlafly: A great deal of it. The pro-abortion contingent of the party is rather small. They don’t have main figures helping them. For example, four years ago, two presidential candidates made their whole campaign based on getting pro-life out of the platform. They were Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter and California governor Pete Wilson. You notice that they are not even in the running this year. Every Republican candidate proclaimed that he was pro-life. Christine Whitman, who has been a leader of the pro-abortion faction, decided not to run for the Senate, probably because the pro-lifers in New Jersey are too strong. She’s no longer in the running as a national figure. I think the pro-abortionists in the Republican party just don’t have a prominent spokesman.

NR: You mentioned delegates. Are there possible scenarios at the convention in regard to McCain delegates that concern you?

Schlafly: McCain delegates are a wild card at this point. We don’t know what their views will be. However, I think the large vote that McCain got in the primaries conclusively demolishes the principal argument of the pro-aborts. In other words, the pro-choice Republicans have been telling us for years that for the Republican party to reach out to moderates and independents we have to have a pro-choice or at least an abortion-neutral position. And it is perfectly obvious with all the big vote that McCain got in so many states that the people who voted for him as the so-called “moderate” were not the slightest bit bothered that he is also pro-life. I think that the pro-choice Republicans have lost their principal argument.