One of the few positions Republican candidates share in this election cycle is the claim that they are all pro-life, which is a misnomer for their real position of being pro-forced birth. With Donald Trump's revelation that he believes women should be punished for having an abortion, he revealed the misogynist leanings of the GOP.
Legal abortion is more of a hot button issue than ever before. Not only did Trump confirm our suspicions that women are the targets of draconian Republican anti-abortion laws, the D.O.J. recently raided the home of David Daleidan of the Center for Medical Progress. This controversy made most infamous by Carly Fiorina's failed presidential bid, exposed the lengths that the pro-forced birthers will go to control a woman's right to choose. No one has been more extreme than Operation Rescue's Troy Newman, who sparred with Alan Colmes over the issue of punishing abortionists.
Recent laws, which are decidedly misogynist in nature, have been enacted in states run by Republican governors to reverse Roe v Wade and criminalize abortions. Indiana's Mike Pence is certainly the most outrageous with his latest bill,
which bans abortions sought because of fetal abnormalities, including those that can lead to later miscarriages, and mandates fetal remains be either cremated or buried.
In this case, the woman is at risk for imprisonment simply for making a choice about her own body. Trump concurred, at least momentarily, that women should face punishment, depending on which state she lives.
Trump staked out an abortion position so extreme that he blew up years of abortion foes’ careful messaging. (Trump's comments) sent anti-abortion activists immediately scrambling to correct the damage.
Newman says he's been a fierce advocate for the unborn for over 25 years, but he is most notoriously known for his tacit endorsement of violence against abortion providers.
Colmes and Newman sparred over the assertion that the abortion provider could also be labeled a contract killer or murderer.
COLMES: If you're hiring the murderer, would you also be punished?
NEWMAN: Traditionally, in America we've never punished the woman because she's the secondary victim, the first victim is the innocent baby.
COLMES: ...What you're really saying is that the woman the victim in that she can't make up her own mind. Isn't that kind of paternalistic to say, 'ah, the poor little woman, she's the little victim here, she's not responsible for her behavior?'
NEWMAN: A South Dakota legislative study said 65% of women are 'coerced' into an abortion so women are the secondary victim, the primary victim is the child himself and we punish the people who are doing the murders!
The 'study' that Newman is referencing was actually based on a manufactured crisis, much like the fetal body parts issue that has been handily debunked. Abortion coercion is a minute problem, much like 'voter fraud.' The right seems to love perpetrating these myths. Regarding this South Dakota 'study,' Newman's deceptive framing is obvious.
Coerced abortion is a very small piece of the puzzle of a much larger problem, which is violence against women and the impact it has on her health...to focus on the minutia of coerced abortion really takes away from the really broad problem of domestic violence.
Newman continues to defend the bogus findings of the CMP fetal parts story while depicting Planned Parenthood solely as an abortion factory.
Alan concludes that Newman and his acolytes actually believe that a woman is 'off the hook' because she really doesn't know what she's doing. The author of 'Their Blood Cried Out' believes the findings of the South Dakota study conclude that more than likely, a woman is coerced into the abortion. This sort of paranoid insanity doesn't begin to describe the lunacy espoused by Troy Newman.
He is a proud member of the group Pro-Lifers for Cruz, which is headed by Tony Perkins. It's stunning that a candidate would happily accept his endorsement given Newman's history of graphic and disturbing extremism. The LA Times printed an article called: "Newman Will Pick Through Clinic Workers' Trash," which compared pro-choice supporters To Nazi Doctor Josef Mengele.
Newman will pick through clinic workers' trash to figure out where they do business; he'll trail them at a distance to learn their routines.
His goal is not just to make their lives uncomfortable. He wants to unsettle and disgust their friends and associates, so their hairstylists and their pharmacists, even their neighbors, make it clear they're not welcome in Wichita.
"If Josef Mengele came into a bank saying, 'Here are a few gold teeth I ripped out of the Jews before I gassed them,' the bank would be horrified. They'd say, 'I'm not taking your blood money.' That's the picture of abortionists that we have to paint," Newman said.
Newman moved his Operation Rescue headquarters to Wichita, Kansas in 2002. He was pivotal in setting the climate for the murder of Dr. Tiller in that same city seven years later. One of his manifesto's strategies for ending abortion is to 'execute abortion providers.'
It is terrifying that Ted Cruz is happy to have Troy Newman firmly in his camp, which is essentially a group of zealots who believe women must be controlled by men. Before the Democratic Party destroys itself with infighting, we must remember who the real enemy of sanity and reason is: members of the pro-forced birth GOP. A Republican like Cruz, with his frightening alliances, should be an enemy dangerous enough to unify the Democrats, no matter who is named as the nominee.
