When people show you who they are…
Blog | July 17, 2024
Maya Angelou: “Believe people when they tell you who they are. They know themselves better than you.”
As Republican candidates try to claim that they don’t really believe in abortion bans heading into the 2024 election cycle, let’s learn this lesson from Ms. Angelou and believe these politicians the first time. We need to see through the sham statements being made today.
First up, former President Trump now wants to pretend his judges on the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade aren’t to blame for 1 in 4 women in the U.S. living in a state where abortion is banned. Don’t forget that he famously said during the 2016 presidential election that “there must be some form of punishment” for the woman if abortion is illegal. When the Dobbs overturned Roe and nearly 50 years of legal precedent, Trump gloated that he was the one that achieved a goal the Republicans had been fighting to achieve for decades. “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone.” He continued by taking credit for the dangerous abortion bans taking effect across the country following the overturning of Roe, “Without me there would be no 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks or whatever is finally agreed to. Without me the pro-life movement would have just kept losing.”
Earlier this week, Trump nominated Ohio Senator JD Vance to be his running mate. Vance following in Trumps footsteps has tried to sound more moderate on abortion in the last few weeks, but again that is complete BS. Vance spread lies last year about the Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment (Issue 1). In the last few months has voted AGAINST protecting access to birth control and IVF services. He may be running from the truth now, but he can’t outrun his record on abortion.
Bernie Moreno is also part of this club. He is running against strong abortion rights supporter Sen. Sherrod Brown. Time after time, he proves he is completely unfit for the job. Moreno’s views on abortion are completely out of touch with Ohioans, he supports a federal abortion ban which would overrule the will of Ohio voters who overwhelmingly passed the Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment last year. You would think someone who is so strong in their beliefs about abortion would want to make sure everyone knew about it. But, last week Moreno staged a photo op saying that he was available to “take tough questions” but as soon as he was asked about abortion he refused to answer.
We see the same pattern in congressional races as well.
Former state representative and state senator Kevin Coughlin is running against abortion rights champion Congresswoman Emilia Sykes in District 13 (Akron area). Last month Coughlin tried to run from his LONG record of voting for bills that restrict abortion access, even co-sponsoring a resolution in the Ohio Senate opposing any federal protections for abortion access. Now, however, he claims that he doesn’t support a federal abortion ban. He is banking on us forgetting about this quote from the primary earlier this year: “I had a strong pro-life record in the legislature for the 14 years I was there. I’ve either co-sponsored or voted for every allowable Roe v Wade state restriction.”
In Northwest Ohio, Derick Merrin is running against incumbent Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District. Merrin is an original co-sponsor of Ohio’s 6-week abortion ban. He was also an original co-sponsor of a TOTAL abortion ban, the famous bill that required embryos from ectopic pregnancies to be re-implanted into the uterus (spoiler alert: that is not actually a thing). The day after the passage of the Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment, Merrin doubled down and tweeted, “House Republicans will look at all available avenues to defend the unborn moving forward. We will not give up.”
Abortion rights supporter Congressman Greg Landsman is running for re-election against Orlando Sonza. In 2022, Sonza said that he both supported overturning Roe and would support a state and federal ban on abortion. Like all of his other Republican buddies, he is now trying to run from the truth and pretend that is not what he believes.
Ohioans are smart, we won’t be fooled by these candidates pretending they don’t want to ban abortion. We know the danger these candidates pose to abortion access. A federal abortion ban would override the overwhelming vote to pass our Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment. We cannot allow that to happen.
