Wasserman Schultz: Romney’s Anti-Choice Extremism Will Repel Jews

David Streeter — October 29, 2012 – 3:18 pm | Mitt Romney | Women's Issues Comments (0) Add a comment

Democratic National Committee Chair Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) explained in Haaretz that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s extremism on women’s rights will ultimately repel the majority of Jewish voters. Wasserman Schultz wrote:

Mitt Romney has staked out an aggressively anti-choice stance from the beginning of his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. To this day his website says that ‘he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade,’ pledges to end federal funding for organizations such as Planned Parenthood, and to reinstate the Mexico City Policy, a burdensome policy that undermines the efforts of international organizations to promote safe and effective family planning programs.

He has also gone further, proposing a fiscal plan that would completely eliminate Title X - the only federal program dedicated exclusively to family planning - taking a harder line stance than many other pro-life advocates.

But that’s not Romney’s only extremist position when it comes to a woman’s right to make medical decisions about her own body. Last year, when Mitt Romney was asked by Mike Huckabee on FOX News whether, while governor of Massachusetts, he would have ‘supported a constitutional amendment that would have established the definition of life as conception’ Romney replied, ‘absolutely.’ And it’s hard to forget earlier this year, when he referred to morning-after pills as ‘abortive pills’ and referred to the president’s health care provision providing free contraception as a ‘violation of conscience’ at a rally in Colorado.

Perhaps Gov. Romney’s most egregious attempt to appeal to anti-choice voters was his selection of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate.

Congressman Ryan proudly cosponsored the ‘No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act’ which only made exceptions for federally funded abortions in the case of “forcible rape,” excluding victims of ‘non-forcible rape’ such as those who are victims of statutory rape, those who are raped while drugged, or those who have a limited mental capacity. Rape is rape, there are no valid distinctions. Congressman Ryan also cosponsored the ‘Sanctity of Human Life Act’ - also known as a ‘Personhood Amendment’ - which would define life as beginning at the moment of fertilization, effectively outlawing abortion, many types of birth control, and procedures like IVF that help couples trying to conceive.

When it comes to a woman’s right to choose, the Romney-Ryan ticket is about as extreme as it gets….

According to the 2012 Jewish Values Survey by the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute, 95 percent of Jewish Democrats support abortion rights in all or most cases, along with 77 percent of Jewish Republicans. We need a leader who we know we can trust to protect a woman’s right to make her own decision, not Mitt Romney, who would take that right away….

Abortion is a sensitive topic to discuss and one on which not everyone agrees. Nonetheless, the Jewish community seems to speak in virtually one voice on the issue of choice - it is a fundamental and important right that must not be taken away…. For this pro-choice Jewish mother of three, the choice is clear - President Barack Obama will stand up for the rights of women of my generation, and that of my daughters.

Click here to read Wasserman Schultz’s full piece. 

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