Mitt Romney wants you to apperceive that he and his affair are "extraordinarily pro-woman" – "pro-opportunity for women, pro-moms, pro-working moms, pro-working women," as he put it on Fox News the added night. This abstraction Democrats are blame of a Republican "war on women"? "Misguided, wrong, dishonest," he told Sean Hannity. "Look" – actuality came the axis – "this is a chase about allowance America do a bigger job caring for the humans of America.... The behavior I'm announcement will get America aback to plan and assure greater abundance for our citizens."
It was a cogent exchange. Ever aback Obama opened up a double-digit advance with women voters during the contempo controversies over bearing control, Republicans from Romney on down accept formed harder to beacon the chat abroad from alienated amusing issues that accomplish them attending like religious basics and aback to added beat voter-friendly territory. "It's still about the economy, and we're not stupid," Romney proclaimed afterwards all but wrapping up the GOP choice backward endure month.
The bourgeois advance to change the accountable has basically succeeded, admitting with an abetment from awful job numbers. This is dangerous. Even if "the GOP war on women" – the emblematic talking point – is dead, as at atomic one pundit has suggested, the GOP war on women – the absolute and continuing Republican drive to set aback women's rights and opportunities – charcoal actual abundant alive.
And accomplish no mistake: A Romney admiral will alone amplify the assault. Let's yield a attending at absolutely how, starting with the affair he says will allure women voters to the Republican ticket.
The Economy
American women acquire on boilerplate 23 percent beneath than men – which adds up to an boilerplate accident of $383,000 in assets over a alive lifetime. Romney's advance couldn't say recently whether their man would accept active the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act authoritative it easier for women to book pay bigotry lawsuits (a law fabricated necessary, by the way, because the bourgeois Roberts Supreme Court had eviscerated according pay aegis for women in its 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co ruling). All Romney himself could muster, eventually, was a acquisitive allegation to not abolition it. Democrats are blame the Paycheck Fairness Act, which anon addresses the male-female pay alterity by putting teeth into the half-century old According Pay Act. Republicans argue it and even abjure the facts about allowance inequality. Romney remains mum about his position on the bill.
It's a safe bet that Romney won't blade his affair or its accumulated sponsors for the account of alive women. He'll assuredly say we should assurance the "job creators" to fix whatever's wrong.
Romney abundantly declared,"I like accepting able to blaze people," and absolutely he got a lot of convenance during his administering at the clandestine disinterestedness close Bain Capital (where women fabricated up alone 10 percent of 95 vice-presidents if Romney was in charge). And a Admiral Romney will be arising affluence of blush block to at atomic one ample accumulation of alive women: accessible employees. He proposes to cut government jobs as allotment of his plan to abate the arrears and rein in Washington, jobs disproportionately captivated by women. (Of the 601,000 government workers befuddled out of plan aback June 2009 due to account cuts, two out three were women.)
A Romney admiral would administer accurate affliction on women already disturbing on the bread-and-butter edge. The GOP appointee has acquiescently accepted the "marvelous" Ryan account which ends Medicare in any apparent anatomy and would bandy amid 14 actor and 27 actor humans off of Medicaid, about two thirds of them women. And then, if Romney and a Republican Congress accomplish in repealing "Obamacare" – bold it survives next month's cardinal at the easily of the Roberts Court – 17 actor women due to get bloom advantage beneath the law will abide uninsured.
President Obama proposed a account this year that protects the amusing assurance net and includes a amount of women-friendly measures, such as added allotment for adolescent care, aboriginal education, and administering of activity laws barring gender discrimination. Romney acclaimed a account anesthetized by the Republican House that cuts childcare and reduces aliment and bloom affliction abetment for about 20 actor accouchement as "responsible."
All of which is to say: Beneath a Admiral Romney, apprehend bread-and-butter advance for women to bullwork to a halt. And what about women's animal abandon and changeable rights? On those issues, be able for a warp-speed ride in reverse.
Abortion
"Do I accept the Supreme Court should annul Roe v. Wade? Yes, I do," Romney said during one debate, talking about the 1973 Supreme Court accommodation that affirmed a woman's built-in appropriate to an abortion. He aswell has called the decision "one of the darkest moments in Supreme Court history."
The next admiral will about absolutely accept the ability to actuate whether Roe stands or falls. There is currently a 5-4 pro-Roe majority on the Supreme Court. Yet Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court's a lot of affecting apostle of women's rights, including aborticide rights, is 83 and in declining health, and acceptable to retire during the next presidency.
When asked what he will attending for in a Supreme Court nominee, Romney name-checks the four anti-abortion conservatives on the Court: John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. And he has picked up endorsements from antiabortion PACs, such as the National Appropriate to Activity Committee, that appoint an antiabortion litmus analysis on administrative nominees.
Take Romney at his word: If he wins, Roe v. Wade will be overturned, abrogation it up to the states to adjudge whether aborticide charcoal legal.
Romney and added enactment Republicans acclaim states rights as the way to boldness a advancing affair in a disconnected country. "I would adulation the Supreme Court to say, 'Let's forward this aback to the states,'" he said in an account with Diane Sawyer. "Rather than accepting a federal authorization through Roe v. Wade, let the states afresh accede this affair accompaniment by state." Republicans would adopt you not attending too carefully at their platform, which calls for outlawing all abortions, afterwards exception.
But isn't Romney just pandering to the religious right? Isn't he, at heart, a abstinent on this and added issues? Romney's almanac as governor of Massachusetts – that is, in his about "liberal" apotheosis – suggests otherwise. In 2005, Gov. Romney banned a bill acute hospitals to accommodate emergency contraception to abduction victims. He justified the move by citation the anti-birth ascendancy claptrap of the rightwing binding that the morning afterwards bolus is a anatomy of abortion. (It isn't – it prevents conception.) The advanced Massachusetts assembly overrode Romney's veto, ensuring that abduction victims in that accompaniment would not be affected adjoin their will to buck the adolescent of their rapist. Women who reside in the Red States of the Bible Belt won't be so blessed.
The contempo beachcomber of accompaniment Personhood amendments and laws suggests this is not a adopted scenario. Personhood measures accord fertilized eggs with abounding acknowledged rights, about ban aborticide in all cases, including abduction and incest, and accessible the aperture to bans on in-vitro fertilization, the IUD, and hormonal contraception. Granted, Personhood initiatives accept been alone by the voters by ample margins in Colorado and even in adamantly pro-life Mississippi. But with Roe overturned, all that will be bare to achieve a Personhood law is a bourgeois majority in the accompaniment assembly and a accommodating governor. Note, too, that Romney has assured the antiabortion appropriate that he "absolutely" supports accompaniment and federal built-in amendments defining activity as alpha at conception, a position that puts him to the appropriate of the Mormon Church.
The best that can be hoped for post-Roe is that legislators in the about two dozen states area aborticide will acceptable be banned appearance some altruism and address rape, incest, and activity exceptions into legislation.
Contraception
In January, if Romney was canoeing to the nomination, he ridiculed George Stephanopoulus for allurement him, during a presidential debate, if he anticipation states had a appropriate to ban contraception. "George, this is an abnormal affair that you're raising," he huffed.
Six weeks afterwards Romney had accustomed the Blunt-Rubio Amendment, which would accept accustomed any employer to affirmation a "moral objection" and exclude potentially millions of women from accepting bearing ascendancy beneath their allowance coverage.
As you'll recall, the alive war on women above over endure February if Congressional Republicans convened an about all-male hearing on the Obama administration's authorization that insurers awning bearing ascendancy with no co-pay beneath the Affordable Affliction Act. Romney abutting the choir of affronted conservatives and attacked the birth-control adjustment as a abhorrent advance on religious liberty, even admitting the administering had already revised the antecedent adjustment to assure that no religious academy would accept to pay for contraception. He dogwhistled to the far-right again with statements that the authorization covered "abortive pills." Even afterwards Romney had captivated up the choice and the Blunt Amendment had been defeated, the presumptive Republican appointee was still advancement adjoin the contraception mandate. "As President, I will abate it," he told the National Rifle Association.
Romney wasn't just defensively tacking appropriate to bulwark off Rick Santorum and his hard-right legions. Before the altercation erupted, Romney had already signaled his absorbed to dent abroad at admission to bearing control, vowing to defund Planned Parenthood and annihilate Title X, the federal ancestors planning affairs that provides ancestors planning and screenings for breast and ovarian cancer, top claret pressure, and the like for 5 actor women. Killing the affairs would bankrupt abounding of these women of their alone antecedent of bloom care. Romney had aswell apprenticed to restore George W. Bush's alleged "conscience clause" acceptance anyone in the bloom affliction supply chain, say a agent in a pharmacy, the appropriate to debris to advertise contraceptives.
As continued as Republicans absorb ascendancy of the House – a abreast authoritativeness if the GOP wins the admiral – Romney would accept the ability to bear on these promises, and the abundant advances in women's changeable rights fabricated beneath Obama will be reversed.
But wouldn't achievement absolution Romney from his promissory addendum to the rightwing of the Republican Party? Afterwards all, isn't this what Etch-a-Sketch candidates do?
Again Romney's almanac as Massachusetts governor, so generally cited in favor of his about abstinent outlook, credibility to the adverse conclusion. As able-bodied as attempting to abjure abduction victims the morning afterwards pill, Romney withdrew his antecedent abutment for acknowledged abortion, beginning axis corpuscle research, absolute sex education, and gay civilian rights. On amusing issues he flip-flops in alone one direction: to the right.
Ten canicule ago Romney campaigned in the acute beat accompaniment of Virginia alongside Michele Bachmann and Governor Bob McDonnell. Bachmann accepted Romney as the man who could "take the country back."
Back to what? Bachmann didn't say. Now you know.
Nancy L. Cohen is a historian and the columnist of the the new book, Delirium: How the Animal Counterrevolution is Polarizing America. Follow her on cheep @nancylcohen or on Facebook.
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