Huff Post reports that NARAL Pro-Choice America launched a campaign yesterday against three pro-life governors: Florida’s Rick Scott, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, and Kansas’ Sam Brownback.
The campaign materials portray Govs. Scott Walker (R-Wis.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) as being “obsessed with outlawing abortion” instead of focusing on jobs and the economy. NARAL’s materials describe the governors’ actions limiting reproductive rights, accompanied by photos of the governors’ heads with the word “abortion” splashed across their brains.
Because God forbid that any governor would act as though he governs in a civilized, humane country and attempt to save innocent human beings.
NARAL plans to call voters, purchase online ads, and send mailers in their expensive three-state campaign. In NARAL’s press release, Sasha Bruce, Senior VP for Strategy and Campaigns, claims that “7 in 10 voters support a woman’s right to choose.”
Where exactly did Ms. Bruce come by those numbers? Right…from two NARAL commissioned polls, one done nationally and the other in Kansas City.
From the national poll, here is the data for the three main choices:
I believe having an abortion is morally acceptable and should be legal……………….23.2I am personally against abortion for myself and my family, but I don’t believe government should prevent a woman from making that decision for herself………………..45.5I believe having an abortion is morally wrong and shouldbe illegal…………………..24.7Total Pro-Choice…………………….68.7
A major problem with the poll (other than that it’s a NARAL poll and possibly biased) is that it didn’t provide the voters with the option to answer in ways that the majority of Americans believe.
For instance, according to a 2014 CNN poll, 58% of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal or restricted to a few situations. All bets are off that NARAL would call that “pro-choice.”
According to a 2013 HuffPost/YouGov poll, 59% of Americans “would favor sweeping new national restrictions on abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy” (when the unborn child can undoubtedly and scientifically feel pain), and only 30% would oppose such restrictions.
The same poll found that 43% of Americans believe current abortion restrictions are “not strict enough” while only 37% believe they are “too strict” or “about right.” It found that 49% of Americans believe abortion is “morally wrong” while a meager 12% believe it’s “morally right.”
National polls have consistently shown that Americans overwhelmingly reject their taxpayer dollars funding abortions – whether through a health care plan or otherwise. These polls have been conducted by Rasmussen, Quinnipiac, and CNN.
No points to NARAL for its failure to ask accurate questions that reflect voters’ real viewpoints on abortion.
Let’s hear what NARAL objects to so strongly in the governors’ records:
- NARAL vehemently objects to Governor Brownback’s signature on a 22-week-fetal pain law, even though the majority of voters support such a law and even though the Kansas House (elected by Kansas voters) passed the law by a 3-1 margin. NARAL misleads voters to believe there are no exceptions to the law, even though there are exceptions if the mother “has a condition which so complicates her medical condition as to necessitate the abortion to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.” NARAL specifically claims this law has no “regard for the health of the woman” – a bald-faced lie.
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A 20-week-old baby NARAL is enraged about saving.
NARAL completely lies about Governor Walker’s signature on the Wisconsin law that requires women to have an ultrasound before an abortion. Even though the law makes an exception for medical emergencies and even though it specifically spells out that women must be given the choice between an abdominal and vaginal ultrasound, NARAL claims that the law requires “women to undergo a medically unnecessary, invasive, ultrasound procedure…even if…against their doctor’s advice.” Really? I’ve had multiple abdominal ultrasounds, and they’re about as un-invasive as you can get (especially when contrasting them with abortion). Even so, that’s beside the point. As I’ve written before, even abortion clinics consider multiple ultrasounds to be medically necessary.
- Not surprisingly, NARAL also lies about Governor Scott’s record when they claim his signed law “puts women’s health at risk if they’re experiencing complications from pregnancy.” Here’s what the law actually says:
However, if preserving the life and health of the fetus conflicts with preserving the life and health of the pregnant woman, the physician must consider preserving the woman’s life and health the overriding and superior concern.
But pro-life governors who also care about the lives of women are obviously outside NARAL’s contrived paradigm.
