Posts

Mitt’s Serial Dishonesty, this Time on Abortion & Women’s Health

I just got off an Obama campaign conference call for journos and bloggers with Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, and Stephanie Cutter of Obama for America. The two women pointed out that Mitt’s unabashed dishonesty was on full display yesterday when he told the editorial board of the Des Moines Register that “no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.” Soon after, his spox Andrea Saul reversed course, telling National Review that Romney would “of course” support “pro-life” legislation as president. Then, she sent the AP a statement saying Romney would be a “pro-life president,” though she gave no details about what that would actually mean in terms of the law. Whew, what a dizzying whirl of spin!

In fact, as Richards and Cutter explained, Mitt has promised to sign laws overturning legal abortion and to appoint judges who would rule Roe V. Wade unconstitutional. It’s just one more sign of how dishonest Romney is that he’s trying to hide what he really believes, but as they said, “there’s no hiding when you’re president.” The two emphasized that they don’t believe he’s changed his mind on these issues, instead he’s just trying to soften and blur the hard edges of them. What’s more, if he were to be elected, the radical right-wing of the Repubs would have their way in the House of Representatives, a caucus that has sponsored and voted on a great many anti-choice bills.

They added that despite Ms. Saul’s attempt to downplay the significance of Mitt’s lie to the newspaper, it’s not going to work, because these are issues of fundamental concern to hundreds of thousands of women, and men. Richards concluded her remarks with a reminder that every dollar spent on family planning saves $4 down the road, in avoiding unintended pregnancies. Last, in an email associated with this call, the Obama campaign shared the hardline pledge that Mitt took last June in an exchange of correspondence with anti-abortion groups. You may click through to read Romney’s pledge.