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DSCC Statement On NBC News Report That Blake Masters “Scrubbed His Website’s Policy Page Of Tough Abortion Restrictions”

In response to new reporting today from NBC News revealing that Blake Masters “scrubbed his website’s policy page of tough abortion restrictions,” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Nora Keefe issued the following statement:

“Masters is on video calling abortion ‘demonic’ and stating that he supports a national abortion ban without exceptions. Now his panicking campaign has made a clumsy move – and it will do nothing to change the fact that Masters has dangerous beliefs that are deeply out of step with Arizona’s values.” 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

NBC News: In Arizona, Blake Masters backtracks on abortion, scrubs campaign website
By Allan Smith and Marc Caputo
August 25, 2022

Key Points:

  • Arizona Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters… scrubbed his website’s policy page of tough abortion restrictions Thursday, as his party reels from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
  • Masters’ campaign published an overhaul of his website… re-writing or erasing five of his six positions. NBC News took screenshots of the website before and after it was changed. Masters’ website appeared to be refreshed after NBC News reached out for clarification on his abortion stances.
  • “I am 100% pro-life,” Masters’ website read as of Thursday morning. That language is now gone.
  • Another notable deletion: A line that detailed his support for “a federal personhood law (ideally a Constitutional amendment) that recognizes that unborn babies are human beings that may not be killed.”
  • The personhood effort is an anti-abortion rights pursuit that would grant the same rights and legal protections to fetuses, in some cases before viability, as any person. Those fetal personhood laws would make abortion murder and eliminate all or most abortion exceptions provided in states where the procedure is strictly curtailed, The New York Times reported.
  • Additionally, Masters previously expressed support for “the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, the SAVE Moms and Babies Act, and other pro-life legislation.” The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would make it a criminal offense for performing or attempting to perform an abortion 20 weeks after conception.
  • Masters’ backtracking is one of the clearest signs of how much the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate federal abortion protections is scrambling the political landscape, energizing Democrats to both turn out at higher-than-expected rates in some bellwether contests and to flood their candidates and campaign committees with small-dollar donations.
  • Speaking to The Arizona Republic, Masters added Arizona’s soon-to-take-effect ban on abortions after 15 weeks — with exceptions only for the life of the mother — is “reasonable.”
  • In another instance of a language change, Masters’ website included this pledge: “Strip taxpayer funding from Planned Parenthood, all other abortionists, and any organization that promotes abortion.”
  • Now the sentence no longer mentions “abortionists” — a term coined by abortion rights opponents — nor “any organization that promotes abortion.”
  • Another promise was completely eliminated from the website: “Remove funding for any research that uses embryonic stem cells of aborted fetal remains.”
  • “If Blake Masters thinks that he can quietly delete passages from his website and disguise just how out of touch and dangerous his abortion stance is, he’s in for a rude awakening,” Kelly spokesperson Sarah Guggenheimer said in a statement to NBC News.

WATCH the DSCC’s ad, “His Own Words,” spotlighting Masters’ anti-choice rhetoric.

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