Woman says Erickson paid for abortion
GOP congressional candidate denies allegations; opponent Mannix mailer reveals charge
A 33-year-old Clackamas County woman alleged Monday that Republican congressional candidate Mike Erickson got her pregnant in 2000 and then paid for her to have an abortion.
The woman and her friend, Kristi Oetken, first attempted to draw attention to the issue in 2006 after receiving a campaign mailer from Erickson touting his endorsement by Oregon Right to Life during Erickson’s first run for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District. The woman and her friend said they considered Erickson’s anti-abortion stand hypocritical in light of his experience with the woman.
The issue remained under-the-radar in 2006, however, when both women had second thoughts and declined on-the-record media interviews.
But on Monday, the woman agreed to share her story with the Portland Tribune, after Erickson’s primary opponent, Kevin Mannix, referred to the incident in a campaign mailer and press release. The Portland Tribune agreed to allow the woman to remain anonymous, because she said she was traumatized by the abortion and feared retribution.
“We became pregnant, and not only did he pick me up and drove me to the abortion clinic, he completely encouraged me to do that,” the woman said. On the way to the clinic, “he withdrew $300 from his bank account” at an ATM to pay for the procedure, she said.
Oetken said she held her friend’s hand during the abortion at Bours Health Clinic in the Lloyd District, after Erickson dropped her off. “He didn’t go in, didn’t walk her in, just left her at the door,” Oetken said in an interview with the Portland Tribune last month. “I’d left work and met her there. I can describe it to you — the stairs, the hallway, the little lobby.”
Smear tactics
Lois Anderson, the Oregon Right to Life political director, confirmed in an interview earlier this month that she talked to the woman at length in 2006 and was convinced she was credible. “In her mind, he knew she was pregnant and she told him it was his child,” Anderson said.
Leaders of the group spoke with Erickson about the allegations during the 2006 race.
“He acknowledged knowing her,” Anderson said. “He categorically denied any involvement in fathering a child or any involvement in an abortion,” she said. “As idiotic as it sounds, they were both very credible.”
Erickson declined to comment on the controversy Monday and deferred to his general campaign consultant Cary Evans.
“We just don’t think smear tactics and wild accusations are worthy of the time,” Evans said. “From our point of view, these are the same allegations that surfaced in 2006 and were uncorroborated and unsubstantiated,” he said. “There’s nothing new.”
Evans said the campaign tactic was a sign of Erickson’s lead over Mannix in the GOP primary.
“I think he knows he’s losing and he’s desperate,” Evans said.
Mannix declined to comment on his allegations, deferring to his campaign manager Amy Langdon, former Oregon Republican Party executive director.
“We felt that our opponent has had a pattern of deception, saying one thing when the other is true, and we felt this was part of that,” Langdon said.
On Monday, the Mannix campaign sent a letter from Mannix to about 60,000 Republican voters who have yet to mail in their ballots. The letter referred to — and showed a copy of — an e-mail that Oetken had sent in 2006 to a range of journalists, Oregon Right to Life officials and Erickson.
“It is unfortunate that I am the one who has to release this information to the public considering others have known for some time,” Mannix wrote in the letter. “The e-mail is verified and sheds light on the character of Mike Erickson, who claims he is pro-life,” Langdon wrote in the letter.
Considered a ‘tossup’
The 5th District includes most of Clackamas County, parts of Southwest Portland, all of Marion, Polk, Tillamook and Lincoln counties and part of Benton County.
Since six-term incumbent Darlene Hooley, D-West Linn, announced in February that she wouldn’t seek a seventh term, the race has rocketed to one of the nation’s hottest House races.
It’s rated by the Rothenberg Political Report as one of only 15 “tossup” races in the nation among 435 House races, and one of the few Democrat-held seats that Republicans might win.
State Sen. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby and Steve Marks, a longtime aide to former Gov. John Kitzhaber, are the leading Democrats in the race.
Mannix is better known in the district than Erickson, but Erickson may have an edge in a short race because of his deep pockets. He spent about $1.5 million of his own money in his losing race against Hooley in 2006, and has already loaned his campaign nearly $600,000 for this election.
Mannix reported raising less than $200,000 by April 30, while Erickson had raised more than $900,000, much of it from a personal loan.
‘A huge issue’
Oetken said in the Tribune interview that she and her friend were outraged by Erickson’s “pro-life” claims when her friend, a Republican, received his flyer in 2006. The flyer was mailed to people on Oregon Right to Life’s mailing list, because the group had endorsed Erickson, Anderson said.
“That’s the point when I was so upset, when I saw a beautiful little baby on it, saying Mike Erickson was protecting babies,” the woman said Monday. “I think it’s completely hypocritical that he would solicit or ask for an endorsement from Right to Life,” she said.
Erickson’s current website also boasts his “pro-life” stance. Right to Life has a long and close relationship with Mannix and endorsed him rather than Erickson in the 2008 race. The group publicly complained about Erickson mentioning his earlier endorsement from the group in a campaign mailer sent this spring.
Oetken and her friend notified Right to Life of their concerns during the 2006 race, and sent an e-mail to several news outlets.
They set up at least one interview with a newspaper reporter, but canceled at the last minute. The woman feared getting her name “smeared,” Oetken said.
Oetken said she met Erickson with her friend at Portland’s Jimmy Mak’s jazz club. She said the two dated for several months, and even went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, together about a month after the abortion.
Right to Life’s Anderson said that after talking with Erickson, there appeared some possible discrepancies in the woman’s story. “She had another relationship at the time that was on and off,” Anderson said. “She did acknowledge that.”
There was also a question whether Erickson knew he was driving the woman to an abortion clinic, and paying for a different medical treatment, Anderson said.
“It was a very explosive situation,” she said. “I had this girl who was very much in trauma and needed help. I had no reason to believe (Erickson) did not have a pro-life political position.”
The woman said Monday there was no confusion about who was the father at the time. “There was a huge issue with an ex-boyfriend who was living in my apartment at the time. That created a mess,” she said.
“It was absolutely Mike Erickson’s child and he knew that, and he knew that I was going to have an abortion,” she said. “He knew that’s what his money was paying for.”
In the end, Right to Life decided that it didn’t have solid enough evidence to pull its endorsement of Erickson, Anderson said. “I don’t have any reason to doubt her,” she said. “I think the fuzziness is because of the trauma.
“The issue was, did what we knew rise to the standard that we would need to make such a weighty decision,” she said. “The withdrawal of the endorsement would require an explanation, and how do you do that without revealing information that would be harmful to the woman?”