As the AP reported, Mitt and Ann “I’m personally opposed to abortion” Romney donated to Planned Parenthood.
Mitt’s response?
Romney insists that while he took a pro-choice stand until a couple of years ago, he has always personally opposed abortion. He added that his wife’s donations say little about his positions on the matter.
Yes, just because you donate to the leading pro-choice group doesn’t mean anything.
Here’s Ann quoted on an ABC interview:
Snow: (Former Governor Romney has) been criticized for shifting his views, particularly about abortion. A couple of years ago, he, he changed his view on it. He’s talked to us about it. My understanding is that his original view, when he said in ’94 that he was for abortion rights, was driven in a large part by a family member of yours who, unfortunately, died as a result of an abortion. Now, he’s saying that he’s not for abortion rights at all. How do you reconcile, that’s your family member too.
Romney: In-law. You know, he is, people evolve. His position on life, he’s firmly pro life. He has come to this, I think through his decisions and things that happened as he was Governor, and he is just clearly knows where he is, and he, he’s firmly pro life.
Snow: And you agree with him on that?
Romney: Yes.
Ah, the Romneys.
I guess that makes me a flip flopper.
If it were just that easy. But I think we are all well are that it is not. Mitt’s way out about his flip flop on this particular issues (and there are many others where he has taken a sharp right turn over the past two years) is that he was personally against abortion but will uphold existing laws. We all know that that’s a load of bs, but it’s his explanation. With his record and with Mitt and Ann’s statements which are well documented here explain to me how someone who has ALWAYS been personally against abortion donate to Planned Parenthood. Could you do that for me? Don’t shovel this easter bunny crap.
They wanted to win. That was tough.
So you’re saying that somebody who was personally against abortion basically sold out their soul (by donating to PP [not Peter Porcupine!]) to win an election. (At least, that’s how Mitt’s base will see it.)
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Is that really somebody you want running the town clerk’s office, let alone the country?
and all donations gratefully accepted1 :~)
that Anne Romeny made is very interesting. For being half of a team that likes to sell itself on a family purity ‘n goodness bill, it’s funny how she wants to be sure we know that that woman who had the deadly abortion wasn’t real family, just some in-law. Pathetic. Much like Cumberland Farms saying they treat their employees like family, then go one to deny health care coverage to husbands & wives of gay employees. Sure glad I’m not in either of those families!
You just nicely summed up what went through my head when I saw that “In-law” statement.
…are we for equality or not? Ann Romney is an individual, she is not her husband or an extention of her husband. You can’t try to impute her donation or her comments to Mitt without suggesting that a wife is in someway subvervient to or responsible to her husband. What she says or does in not what Mitt says or does. He is an easy enough target, going after his wife is inexcusable.
she wasn’t out campaigning for him. but choosing to be part of Team Romney, she has opened herself up for scrutiny. if she were smart, she would have a) said just what you did; and b) stated firmly the truth – that planned parenthood is much more than an abortion provider. in fact, a major goal of PP is preventing unwanted pregnancies, which of course means fewer abortions. thus her contributions should be lauded by the fundigelicals. i that Team Romney doesn’t credit fundigelicals with such nuanced thinking.
…being criticized for the sake of having her credibility tarnished, it is being imputed to her husband, so she is just a wifey and whatever she did Mitt did too???
i would puke if i had to play that role, but she has not refuted that that is what she is doing, as i said above, and neither has he. this sends the message to the Southern Baptists and beyond that they both see her as a good wifey and his extra rib.
….choose to discriminate in that way or order their lives in a way that is different from yours it excuses your jumping on the bandwagon?
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I have to say, considering you zealous attitude toward issues of equality in general, I find your position on this to be a disappointment.
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they have chosen to play these roles. don;t confuse my disinterest in playing such a role with insisting that others dont. this is an open-minded stance. they set up their marriage however they like, i do the same.
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so then, when they present themselves as one entity with 2 mouths, the words from either mouth can bring acclaim or blame to the whole. if this wasn;t the game they were playing, romney himself would have made a statement that his wife’s decisions were her own and he supported her even if he disagrees with her past decision. did you hear anything like that? i didn’t.
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i HATE spouses being treated as secondary bits of accessory flesh when they don’t ask to be. check out other things i’ve written, you;ll see my comments support this. but Ann Romney has set herself up to be a Ruth to WIllard’s Naomi. One could say it was disrespectful not to acknowledge her choice by not taking her seriously in that role. I’m taking her seriously. And I seriously find fault in her changed stance on choice, and in her verbal distancing of herself from her in-laws who suffered the botched abortion.
….all you want. To put it on her husband is degrading to women in general even if some women want to be so degraded, even if you believe she chooses to so degrade herself. Mitt has said that her donation and her statements are hers and not his. If you insist that is not the case then you are reinforcing outmoted gender roles. Whether Ann Romney chooses to do so is irrelevant. You can’t control her behavior, but you can choose not to validate it.
if she wasn’t saying that she completely agrees with him now: if she made the donation and disagrees with her husband she should acknowledge the difference of opinion and defer that she’s not the candidate so it’s his opinion that is relevant not hers. and if Mitt wasn’t from a prominently historically pro-choice family and hadn’t just flipped on this after over 30 years. (though at least it was dragged out over a couple of years, unlike Kucinich’s overnight flip from 2002 to 2003 on his abortion voting record)
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Ann Romney, as a candidate’s spouse, automatically becomes a public figure: but once she states that her political thoughts are absolutely in line with her husband, her political actions are relevant insight into both of them.
….people pick apart the wives of candidates but never the husbands and never assume that what a husband says must be by nature of the spousal relationship of reflection of what the wife thinks.
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Stick to criticizing Romney on his own (lack of) merits. There is a mountain of ammunition. Bringing his wife in is just cheap and easy.
People don’t pick apart the husbands?
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Do you remember when Chris Matthews wasted a chunk of the Republican presidential debate asking each candidate a question about a Democratic candidate’s husband?
…all agree that Mr. Clinton is the exception to the rule since he is a former president. Care to cite another example?
since there have been no serious female contenders for president before clinton.
Nah, none of them were serious – they just had a million bucks of left-over shoe and housekeeping money, and decided to run for President instead of get a new apron.
but clearly none of them made it to top tier, which means they were not serious candidates.
…who got the Veep nod.
…taking about Presidential candidates. I was answering one particular implication about Bill Clinton above, but there are plenty of women Governors, Senators, Reps, etc. and the husbands are never scrutinized the way the wives are.
Clear your cache, then type “Sean Healey” into any news archive.
…they ever talked about was his money, he wasn’t presumed to be an extention of Kerry Healey.
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Tell me that she’s not an part of the campaign.
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Well no not really I didn’t I was co-erced into giving them money every year because as a Student at UMass Lowell, I had to affirmitively deny my willingness to donate to them or I had to pay up if I forgot to check off the box. I’ve hated them to this day since. I’m not saying that’s what happened to Mrs. Romney. But sometimes things aren’t what they seem.
but she hasn’t.
Boy, is Mass NARAL gonna be surprised!
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You COULD manufacture a scandal about the robot wife if the recipient was NARAL – but Planned Parenthood operates contraception clinics, counsels on safe sex, etc. In fact, by helping young women gain access to EXPENSIVE contraceptives – until recently not covered by health isurance, and CERTAINLY not covered when Ann Romney gave her donation – you could argue that in fact Ann WAS pro-life by helping young women avoid having to decide about abortion by using contracaption.
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But that wouldn’t be much fun.
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BTW – does it strike anyone else as odd that the head of Mass. PP (and presumably the source of this old donation information) is a gay man, for whom issues of conception are entirely hypothetical?
Tell it to John Howard!
wouldn’t there be others with access to same?
from that in-law side by turning her back on choice. i bet there’s dissention in the ranks of the extended family over this jump to a forced-birth stance. what a back stab to the family who lost their loved one for nothing.
That reminds me. Changing the subject, but do you have any unbiased thoughts that the John Howard notion might constitute due process ‘rational basis’ for DOMA?
How? When I worked at stop and shop for 2 years, I donated 5 bucks a week out of my check to United Way, which is one of the biggest contributors to Planned Parenthood, of course I didn’t know that at the time.
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Everyone makes mistakes they regret.
Joe – I too give to PP, and it isn’t because of choice. It’s so young women with no health ins. can get Norplant, or the patch, or IUD, or other means of protection. Safe and inexpensive contraception is the cornerstone of eliminating abortion.