A number of Republican candidates competing in crucial battlegrounds in the Senate hold strong anti-abortion views, including opposing the procedure even in cases of rape and incest.
Why it matters: The views of these Republican candidates go far beyond what Republicans have traditionally espoused: exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. If elected, these candidates, from JD Vance in Ohio to Herschel Walker in Georgia, would push the party further to the right.
Between lines: Even former President Trump, whose good faith in anti-abortion rights was a key component of his 2016 and 2020 platforms, favored exceptions to abortion bans.
- In 2019, he tweeted: “As most people know, and for those who would like to know, I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions – Rape, Incest and protection of Mother’s Life – the same position that Ronald Reagan took.”
- The leaked draft signaling the Supreme Court’s intent to overturn Roe v. Wade has put abortion at the forefront of the midterm elections.
- The views of the current candidates are in line with a series of abortion bans recently enacted at the state level in places like Ohio, Arizona, Oklahoma, Florida and Texas.
The panorama: The state laws and the positions held by Senate candidates have raised new questions about whether Republicans, if they regain a majority in the House or Senate, will try to pass a federal abortion ban.
- Such a measure would not become law while President Biden is in office, but it would prepare future legislation for when a Republican returns to the White House.
Georgia
HerschelWalker, former football star endorsed by Trump, filled a Georgia Life Alliance survey late last year stating that he believes abortion should be illegal, including in cases of rape and incest.
- “I am 100% pro-life. As the next senator from Georgia, I will vote for any legislation that protects the sanctity of human life, even if the legislation is not perfect,” he wrote on the form.
- Last month, he told a pastor in Rock Springs Church: “I believe from the womb to the grave.”
Everyone five other Republican Senate candidates he said during an Atlanta Press Club debate last week that he supports an outright ban on abortion, including in cases of rape and incest. Walker did not attend.
Pennsylvania
david mccormick — who is facing a heated primary with his Trump-backed opponent, Mehmet Oz — said during a debate in Harrisburg last month that he is dead set against all scenarios involving abortion, other than that “in the very rare cases there should be exceptions for the life of the mother”. .”
Oz made similar comments in the debate when asked directly about cases of rape and incest. She said that she believes there should be an exception for the life of the mother: “We don’t want mothers to die while trying to give birth to a child.”
North Carolina
Representative Ted Budd (RN.C.), also backed by Trump, has left the door open to prohibit abortion in cases where the life of the mother may be at risk, as well as in cases of rape and incest.
- When pressed about these specific scenarios during an interview with CBS last month, Budd said, “You have to look at it as a tragedy, and let’s get this person involved, let’s talk to them. But let’s also understand there’s a second life there. And you had to look at it through those glasses to see why you would want to take a second life from something that has already been damaged.”
new hampshire
ChuckMorse, former president of the state Senate, helped write and pass a state budget that included a ban on abortions after 24 weeks, with no exceptions for rape, incest or fetal viability, according to the concord monitor.
- However, the ban includes exceptions for pregnancies that endanger the life or health of the mother.
Florida
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)running for re-election this fall, has long opposed including rape and incest exceptions in abortion cases, something that used to set him apart from his Republican colleagues.
Ohio
JD Vance, the Trump-backed author of “Hillbilly Elegy” who won a massive Republican primary last week, told Spectrum News does not believe that rape and incest are exceptions they are needed.
- Vance said, “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” adding, “The question for me is really about the baby.”
- “It is not a question of whether a woman should be forced to give birth to a child, but whether a child should be allowed to live, even if the circumstances of that child’s birth are in some way inconvenient or a problem for society. Vance said.
Reference-www.axios.com