“Women Are Fed Up”: Headlines Slam GOP Senate Candidates’ Anti-Choice Words & Records

Nevada Independent: “Laxalt called the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision ‘a joke’”

Vanity Fair: Johnson “said anyone who does not like Wisconsin’s abortion laws ‘can move’”

Business Insider: “Rubio supported banning almost all abortions”

AP: “New Hampshire GOP Senate hopefuls pressed on abortion”

In the week since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, news coverage has called out GOP Senate candidates’ own words and records opposing a women’s rights to make their own health care decisions – including calling Roe v. Wade “a joke,” suggesting women “can move” to get an abortion, and supporting “banning almost all abortions.”  

See for yourself:

• Earlier this month, Republican U.S. Senate candidate and former Attorney General Adam Laxalt called the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision “a joke” and said it’s “sad” that Nevada is not anti-abortion.
  
• “Roe v. Wade was always a joke. It was a total, complete invention,” Laxalt said. “It has created decades and decades of political turmoil. Not to mention, the most important thing that it allowed across the country. So, I think its return back to the states is important.”
  
• After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Laxalt released a statement celebrating the “historic victory for the sanctity of life” and said the Supreme Court “never had the expertise nor the authority to unilaterally legislate on abortion.”

• Johnson… said he didn’t view the repeal of Roe v. Wade “as a huge threat to women’s health” and that things would be “fine.” He said anyone who does not like Wisconsin’s abortion laws “can move,” has advocated for a federal abortion ban after 20 weeks—despite arguing that the matter was a state’s issue—and supported a Mississippi law to ban abortions after 15 weeks.
  
• Wisconsin Democrats feel they have a credible case to make against Johnson when it comes to his record on women. In addition to his position on Roe, Johnson has suggested that single mothers choose to have more children in order to receive greater welfare assistance. He also suggested that assisting single mothers with government aid turned them into “dependents” and that mothers on welfare assistance should work in childcare centers as an alternative solution.
  
• “He is really a true believer when it comes to the oppression of women and disrespecting women. He’s been doing it for a long time here in his political career,” Melissa Baldauff, a Democratic strategist based in Wisconsin, told me.

• In a 2010 questionnaire, then-first-time US Senate candidate Rubio was far more explicit about the types of abortion restrictions he’d support.

• He backed a constitutional amendment to ban abortions unless a pregnancy is life-threatening, and said he’d support a bill to give spouses the right to be notified and intervene before an abortion.
  
• The questionnaire, from the National Pro-Life Alliance, asked whether Rubio would support 10 of their priorities. He replied “yes” to all of them.

• Donald Bolduc, Bruce Fenton, Vikram Mansharamani, Chuck Morse and Kevin Smith were asked Monday night to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court decision ending constitutional protection for abortion and whether they would support federal laws restricting it… all praised the decision.
  
• The winner will take on U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat seeking her second term. She argues that several of the GOP candidates have records and positions consistent with backing a nationwide abortion ban.
  
• “My opponents have made themselves very, very clear: if elected, they would work to eviscerate a woman’s fundamental rights. In the world’s greatest democracy, they would make women second class citizens,” she told reporters earlier Monday.
  

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