I just got off a conference call – with State Senator Barbara Favola, former Delegate Katherine Waddell, NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia’s Executive Director Tarina Keene, and Planned Parenthood’s Cianti Stewart-Reid – responding to Mark Obenshain’s latest deceitful television ad (in Orwellian fashion, Obenshain’s Big Lie is entitled “Truth”; also note who Marsha Garst is – ee gads). In this case, Obenshain is deliberately attempting to mislead Virginians when it comes to his deplorable record on women’s health issues. He’s pretending that stating the FACTS of the bills HE has sponsored and the votes HE has taken to make miscarriage a crime, to shut down women’s health clinics across Virginia, to ban abortion and many forms of contraception, etc, etc., are somehow an “attack” on him. But here’s the total flaw in his “logic”: it can’t be an “attack” to point out things that he himself did, and was very proud to do, unless he’s changed his mind and now opposes those things (which he hasn’t). I know, details details. 🙂 With that, here are highlights from the call.
*Sen. Favola emphasized the importance of setting the record straight when it comes to Mark Obenshain’s anti-women’s-health legislation (e.g., the “personhood” bill, which would ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest; legislation to criminalize miscarriages; and many others).
*Favola noted that “Mark Obenshain votes the way E.W. Jackson speaks and Ken Cuccinelli has acted as Attorney General.” They are all Tea Party folks, and have all been “flat-out terrible” when it comes to women’s health and reproductive freedom.
*The bottom line, in Favola’s view, is that Mark Obenshain as AG would be “devastating.”
*Former Delegate Katherine Waddell said if we’ve learned anything the past 4 years, it’s “the importance of the Attorney General of Virginia and the impact the Attorney General has on public policy in Virginia.”
*Waddell added, “We’ve seen what Ken Cuccinelli has done at Attorney General related to women’s reproductive health care,” and Obenshain has said he’d be just like Cuccinelli.
*Waddell reviewed Obenshain’s record, including “transvaginal ultrasound” legislation, a bill to criminalize miscarriages, fetal pain legislation, regulating women’s health clinics as hospitals, opposing the HPV vaccine, leading the charge to ban emergency contraception in JMU campus dispensaries, etc., etc.
*Waddell concluded: “As a Republican woman who believes in limited government, individual freedom, and the right to privacy, I could never ever support Mark Obenshain.” In contrast, Mark Herring “is the only candidate for Attorney General who will support and protect women and children.”
*Tarina Keene said that “Mark Obenshain has been going around the Commonwealth intentionally misleading women about his record. He seems to be offended by his own offensive legislation, his own voting record, and just the plain truth.”
*Keene added that Obenshain is simply not telling the truth on the miscarriage bill, on closing down women’s health clinics across the state, etc. Obenshain has “an abysmal and proven record when it comes to attacking women’s health and rights during his time in the State Senate…He can’t run from the truth and Virginians just can’t trust him.”
*Cianti Stewart-Reid said that “this extreme ticket really represents three peas in a pod.”
*Stewart-Reid concluded that Obenshain is clearly “not for women’s health…has not been working to protect women, and we’ve really had enough; Virginia women deserve better than that in our Attorney General.“
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