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Fred has denied that he ran as pro-choice, and his statement that it all seems to trace back to a single source matches exactly with what I have found in my own research.

I didn’t do the following research. I believe it may be Sturm Ruger’s.

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STRONGLY OPPOSES topic 1: “Abortion is a woman’s right”

http://www.issues2000.org/Senate/Fred_Thompson_SenateMatch.htm

Next, I looked up his voting record on life issues:

Voted YES on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions. (Jun 2000)
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions. (Oct 1999)
Voted YES on banning human cloning. (Feb 1998)

http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Fred_Thompson.htm#Abortion
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Then I decided to check out how a pro-life interest group, the National Right to Life Committee evaluated Fred on life issues:

“This morning, I cited reports being promoted by the pro-Romney blog Evangelicals for Mitt suggesting that Fred Thompson ran his two campaigns for Senate in Tennessee as a pro-choicer. Not so, National Right to Life executive co-director Darla St. Martin just told me.

St. Martin said that she went down to Tennessee in 1994 to speak with Thompson personally when he first ran for Senate, and that she determined he was against abortion.

‘I interviewed him and on all of the questions I asked him, he opposed abortion,’ St. Martin said. She told me that the group went on to support him in that election, and his record reinforced for her that their determination was correct.

‘He has a consistent voting record that is pro-life,’ she said.

On the NRLC website, they archive their congressional ratings back to 1997, so they include six of his eight years in the Senate. Thompson took the pro-life position on every vote he cast on the abortion issue...”

http://www.spectator.org/blogger.asp?BlogID=6017

“With 54% of the vote, pro-life former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander (R) won the seat of retiring PRO-LIFE Senator Fred Thompson.”

http://www.nrlc.org/news/2002/NRL11/senate.html

Next, I looked up how a pro-abortion interest group, NARAL, graded Fred on life issues:

“NARAL also rated nine other Republicans... Based on their abortion rights stance, the following Republicans received a grade of ‘F’: ...Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee...”

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Try=No&Page=\Politics\archive\200007\POL20000714a.html

Then, I looked up another pro-abortion group, Planned parenthood, and how it rated Fred on Life issues:

“Listed below is the name, state and party of each of these senators along with Planned Parenthood’s rating of them.

Name State Party PP rating...
Fred Thompson TN R 0% “

http://www.all.org/stopp/rr0111.htm

Conclusion: Fred Thompson is pro-life, and he’s always voted that way. Pro-life groups love him, and pro-abortion groups hate him.