Statement by Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, on the results of the 2012 New Hampshire primary
For Immediate Release: Jan. 27, 2013
Statement by Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, on the results of the 2012 New Hampshire primary:
“The Republican presidential primary has become a race to see which candidate is the worst for women’s health. In the latest chapter, Mitt Romney – winner of the New Hampshire primary – said during a debate this past weekend that he disagreed with the Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which prohibited states from banning the sale of birth control for married couples.
“This is so far out of the mainstream, he will have difficulty gaining the support of moderate women voters who are key to winning the presidency.”
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BACKGROUND:
“Since Ronald Reagan, Republican Presidents (and Presidential nominees) have been committed to overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion-rights landmark from 1973. But as the debates last weekend in New Hampshire suggested, the G.O.P. appears to have taken a more extreme step in terms of rolling back the Constitutional right to privacy.
“Since the first time Mitt Romney ran for President, four years ago, he’s been on record reversing his previous support for abortion rights. However, when pressed by George Stephanopoulos in the debate Saturday night, Romney went beyond mere opposition to Roe. He said he thought Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that first made explicit the right to privacy, was also wrong. ‘I don’t believe they decided that correctly,’ Romney said. In this, the front-runner was eagerly seconded by Rick Santorum, who said the Justices ‘created through a penumbra of rights a new right to privacy that was not in the Constitution.’” (New Yorker, 1/10/12)