PORTLAND (AP) — Maine’s two U.S. senators are raising the abortion issue, which Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would prefer to keep in the background.

Sen. Olympia Snowe wants the presumptive nominee to repudiate the Republican Party’s strict anti-abortion platform when he gives his national convention speech this week.

Snowe, who’s leaving the Senate at the end of this year, wrote a column in the Washington Post on Friday saying Romney and the GOP must rebuild the party’s relationship with women or lose the election in November.

Fellow Republican Sen. Susan Collins said the platform “seems designed to alienate” some women and creates division over an issue that was settled years ago.

A Portland Press Herald survey in late June showed President Barack Obama with a wide lead over Romney among women.

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