The Republican National Convention Wraps Up With More Out-of-Touch, Anti-Women Politicians

What You Won’t Hear from Tonight’s RNC Speakers

WASHINGTON, DC — As the Republican National Convention prepares for its final night in Tampa, Planned Parenthood Action Fund is out with its third and conclusive rundown of “What You Won’t Hear from Tonight’s RNC Speakers.” The effort is part of the group’s campaign to educate voters about what’s at stake for women in this election and what the Romney/Ryan ticket would mean for women’s health.

“The lineup at the Republican National Convention gives voters a clear look into the extreme and out-of-touch agenda that Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and their closest allies would bring to the White House when it comes to women and women’s health,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “The fact is, the more voters learn about Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s record and positions on women’s health, the more appalled they are. That’s why we haven’t heard any of the speakers — many of whom are close advisors to Romney and Ryan — highlight their anti-women’s health agenda. Americans — including the majority of mainstream Republicans — understand that politics have no place in a woman’s personal medical decisions. Those decisions should be left to her, with the consultation of her family, her faith, and her doctor or health care provider.”

Tonight’s lineup includes Newt Gingrich, Marco Rubio, and the Republican presidential nominee himself, Mitt Romney.

REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE, MITT ROMNEY, who said Roe v. Wade was “one of the darkest moments in Supreme Court history,” is “bad law and bad medicine” and in response to a question at a 2012 Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire, said he would overturn it. Mitt Romney wants to end the nation’s family planning program, which provides preventive care to nearly five million women, and cut off access to birth control for women who need it the most, and supports so-called “personhood” efforts, which would give full constitutional rights to fertilized eggs and could ban some forms of birth control and fertility treatment. These measures are so extreme that they have been soundly rejected in Mississippi, Colorado, and Oklahoma. Mitt Romney has also said he would “get rid” of Planned Parenthood, which would deny women access to birth control and lifesaving cancer screenings.
NEWT GINGRICH, who supports “personhood” legislation which defines a fertilized human egg to be a legal person and could criminalize everything from forms of birth control to IVF, has said stem cell research “desensitizes society” and that any kind of experimentation on embryos, even at fertility clinics, should be investigated. During his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, Gingrich suggested that as president, he would ignore the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), who among other things, introduced legislation that would allow bosses to decide what health care women employees receive, wants Roe v. Wade to be overturned and voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a bipartisan measure to combat domestic violence and sexual assault. Sen. Rubio has also pushed for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which would take away important preventive care benefits that 2,489,759 Florida women enjoy.

The Action Fund has also released a set of baseball-style scorecards, which can be viewed here.