Laura Bassett, HuffPo:
Despite Mitt Romney’s efforts to court women voters ahead of November, he chose a running mate who is far outside the mainstream on women’s health issues. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) cosponsored a bill that would give fetuses full personhood rights from the moment of fertilization, which was even rejected by voters in the socially conservative state of Mississippi. He voted to defund federal family planning programs, authored a budget that dismantles Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, all of which disproportionately aid and employ women, and voted multiple times to prevent women in the military from using their own money to pay for abortions at military hospitals.
Ryan also supported a highly controversial bill that Democrats nicknamed the “Let Women Die Act,” which would have allowed hospitals to refuse to provide a woman emergency abortion care, even if her life is on the line.
Of course, Romney also endorsed the Personhood Amendment, has attacked Planned Parenthood, etc., so he’s chosen a running mate who is pretty much in synch with him and Bizarro World. As Rachel says, the Republicans are focused like a laser on jobs!jobs!jobs!, which is to say, abortion.
And the NYTimes, as usual, had something to say about how Ryan’s vision is unkind to the poor, but nothing at all to say about how it’s on the lunatic fringe when it comes to the culture wars.
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