Romney hasn't felt compelled to regard the church's guidance to its members as sufficient in matters of public policy. He emphasizes his independence in assessing issues. He points out that he doesn't drink, consistent with what his church advises, yet he signed a bill permitting liquor sales on Sunday because "there is nothing wrong with drinking alcohol if you do it properly and responsibly." He notes, too, that he doesn't smoke, again as his church counsels, but that it was public-health arguments that caused him to approve a ban on smoking in public places.

On a more momentous issue, abortion, Romney told voters when he ran for the Senate in 1994 that he was personally opposed to abortion but that abortion should be "safe and legal in this country" and that "we should sustain and support" Roe v. Wade because it had been law for 20 years. When Romney ran for governor in 2002, he maintained his position on Roe but also indicated that he didn't want to be known as "pro-choice." He promised voters that he would honor a "moratorium," meaning he would not try to move state abortion law in one direction or the other, and he's kept his word. Romney speaks of the moratorium as an act of deference to "an overwhelmingly pro-choice state" and not as reflecting any commitment he might still have to a pro-abortion rights position.

"I recognize the right for a state to choose its own course," he says. Romney describes himself as "pro-life," but his own moratorium has prevented him from moving abortion policy in that direction, were he inclined to do so. On abortion, Romney's church is in favor of life but permissive of abortion in cases of incest or rape or when the mother's life or health is threatened (that last a very roomy loophole). Suffice it to say, Romney has not seen fit to advance his church's policy.

On the question of when life begins, Romney is actually to the right of some members of his church, since, invoking science, he says life begins at conception ("when all the genetic elements are in place for a human being to develop"), while some co-religionists say it doesn't begin until implantation occurs, because "there's no soul" until then. Romney's position on when life begins has shaped his response to the therapeutic cloning legislation just passed by the Massachusetts Legislature. Romney says it would sanction "the creation of life with the intent of destroying it. For me, that's the line I draw. Other people, other Republicans" — including other Mormons — "draw the line in different places."