The issue keeps nagging him. Liz Mair has details on the
thousands of flyers handed out during the "March for Life" protest,
attacking
Romney's abortion views in general, and additionally
his decision in 2005 to scrap plans to exempt religious and other
private hospitals from being forced to offer emergency
contraceptives to rape victims. Romney's rapid response team fired
back with a myth/fact press release regarding his abortion
views.
On the emergency contraception issue, let me just add that while
I've been critical of Romney on a number of things, in this
instance I think the criticism of him is unfair. Romney vetoed the
controversial emergency contraceptive bill, but it was overridden
by the overwhelmingly liberal Massachusetts legislature. He looked
into alternative ways of carving out an exception for
religious/private hospitals, but ultimately he had to abide by the
new law. Liz (who is pro-choice) takes specific issue with his
quote at the time that "I think, in my personal view, it's the
right thing for hospitals to provide information and access to
emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape." She
argues that a hospital that morally objects to the use of
contraceptives shouldn't be forced to offer them, and I would tend
to agree with her. But all Romney said in the quote is that
hospitals should offer contraceptives to
rape victims, not that they should be forced to--remember he vetoed a bill that did just
that. To offer an analogy, I could say that I personally believe
that the Boy Scouts should allow gays to become scout masters, but
still adamantly oppose efforts to force them to.
Fair or not, the criticism of Romney is coming in fast and
furiously. And it's criticism that he set himself up for by basing
his candidacy on being the choice for social conservatives.
topics:
Abortion, Law
