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INDIANAPOLIS — In his first TV commercial of this election season, 9th District congressional candidate Baron Hill tells voters he believes "marriage between a man and a woman is sacred."

It's a statement the Seymour Democrat and former congressman thought he needed to make after past Republican attacks that accused him of supporting same-sex marriage.

"I could support a federal law defining marriage as that of a man and a woman," Hill said. "But I don't want to use the Constitution as an instrument to ban gay marriage. That's not what the document is about."

Same-sex marriage is among a number of hot-button social issues — including abortion and stem cell research — that could help voters decide whether to stick with Sodrel, send Hill back to Washington or pick Libertarian Eric Schansberg, who opposes same-sex marriage but said the decision should be made at the state rather than federal level.

Sodrel and Schansberg would like to see the newly reconstituted U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal.

Instead, Hill supports legislation offered by U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a member of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a member of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus.

The bill includes initiatives to expand access to birth control for low-income women, increase health-care funding for low-income mothers and children, give grants for creative approaches to reducing teen pregnancy and unintended pregnancy, and provide funding for day-care programs and child-care centers on college campuses.

"The abortion debate has become so shrill on both sides that we never get to the point of reducing the number of abortions, which is something we all want," Hill said.

Otherwise, "I don't think abortion ought to be a choice," he said. "People say it's the woman's body. But I think there's a distinction between a mother and baby. The DNA is different from child to mother. It's two people, and one is on life support."

He doesn't support an exception for women who have been raped because he believes it would be unmanageable. Would a rape allegation be enough to warrant an abortion? Would a man have to be convicted of rape for the woman to be granted the procedure?

In his short stint in Congress, Sodrel has earned a 100percent voting record with National Right to Life, meaning he voted in every instance with the group on the legislation it considered most important.

Sodrel voted for a recent bill that would make it a crime to take a pregnant minor to another state to obtain an abortion without her parents' knowledge.

He's also a co-sponsor of the "Right to Life Act," which would define life as beginning at conception, giving a fetus constitutional rights. Supporters see the measure, which remains in committee, as a way to void Roe v. Wade.

During his six years in Congress, Hill voted for a ban on so-called "partial birth" abortions, a term used by opponents of abortion. He voted for a bill making it a crime to hurt a fetus during another crime.

But he voted for a bill that would allow women to obtain abortions at military medical facilities — if they pay for the procedure. Currently, abortions are banned at such facilities.

Schansberg labels himself "unabashedly pro-life." And he believes Roe v. Wade, which he called "poorly decided," will someday be overturned. But he said it will take a while.

In the meantime, he supports restrictions on abortion, including waiting periods and parental notification. He backs the ban on federal funding for abortions. He believes "using persuasion to win the cultural battle" is most important.

The candidates also have different views on the controversial use of embryonic stem cells, which are those that have the potential to develop into different cell types in the body and show promise for curing diseases. They can be collected from human embryos or fetal tissue.

Sodrel voted against a bill Congress passed earlier this year that would have lifted the ban on federal funding for such research if the cells were collected from embryos created as part of in-vitro fertilization procedures. Schansberg said he would have voted no as well.

With in-vitro fertilization, a woman's eggs are fertilized by sperm outside her body and then the eggs are implanted in her uterus. Often, some of the fertilized eggs are not used. Those would have been the source of cells for research.

"By saying these embryos can't be used for stem cell research, then you're saying in-vitro fertilization should be banned because embryos are destroyed in that procedure, too," Hill said. "We ought to be allowing their use for medical research, because they will be otherwise discarded."

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