The race for governor in Virginia

The Virginia governor's race pits a (personally?) pro-life / anti-death-penalty Democrat (Kaine) against a pro-life / pro-death-penalty Republican (Kilgore).  Here is Kaine's statement on abortion:

I have a faith-based opposition to abortion. As governor, I will work in good faith to reduce abortions by:

1. Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother;
2. Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education;
3. Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity; and
4. Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies.

We should reduce abortion in this manner, rather than by criminalizing women and doctors.

Too often politicians are interested in scoring political points, rather than in reducing the number of abortions. Many of the legislative proposals introduced in the General Assembly, like the ones to require unnecessary building standards for doctor's offices that perform abortions, are just political grandstanding. They encourage division and lawsuits rather than contributing to the goal of reducing abortions.

First, kudos to Kaine for bucking the pro-abortion-rights orthodoxy that has a stranglehold on today's Democratic Party.  I hope that he is the future for his party.  That said, it is too bad that he feels the need to qualify his "opposition to abortion" as "faith based".  In other interviews, he makes it clear that his opposition to abortion is connected to his Catholicism.  Not to be churlish, but -- for Catholics -- opposition to abortion is not supposed to "faith-based", right?  (To be clear:  I'm not suggesting that, in this respect, Kaine's opponent is any better.  But, whoever is talking, I recoil from fideist expressions of "personal" opposition to abortion.)  Second, while Kaine is right that, at this point in history, misguided Supreme Court decisions make it necessary to reduce abortions by the means he supports, rather than by others, are we supposed to conclude that, even if the matter were up to political debate, he would not support protecting unborn children by a prohibition on intentional abortions? 

Rick