The GOP field’s been cut down, but it’s still saturated with insidious anti-Planned Parenthood rhetoric in an attempt to defund the women’s health organization, and populated by candidates whose oppressive, anti-choice policies match their inflammatory rhetoric.
They aren’t trying to hide it: The Republican field is openly running on a platform of limiting women’s healthcare options.
- Donald Trump has said he would defund Planned Parenthood — and he’s characterized the women’s health organization as “an abortion factory.” Trump described the content of the widely discredited videos from the extreme anti-choice Center for Medical Progress as, “people from Planned Parenthood talking about it like you’re selling parts to a car.”
- Ted Cruz supports a personhood amendment that could ban all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest — and potentially go so far as to ban common forms of birth control. Cruz opposed the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, characterizing it as the government “using brute force to force people to pay for abortion-inducing drugs of others.” He’s called the Center for Medical Progress’s misleading videos as “[showing] the face of evil” and appearing to “demonstrate an ongoing pattern of criminal conduct.”
- Marco Rubio opposes abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. In 2012, he introduced a bill to let employers refuse to cover contraceptives in their health insurance plans. In response to the bill, a Tampa Bay Times editorial blasted the senator saying the bill showed Rubio believed “women… should be subject to a religious agenda as a condition of their employment.”
- John Kasich just this week signed a law defunding Planned Parenthood in Ohio. Kasich’s signed another bill that banned abortions after 20 weeks, with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. In short: Kasich has “signed and supported some of the most stringent anti-abortion legislation in the country.”
- Ben Carson has linked abortion to “human sacrifice” in ancient civilizations. One “solution” he’s floated: the country needs to “re-educate women,” in order to stop abortions.
Published: Feb 25, 2016