Republicans have made GOP women the messengers, but their message is still the same.
The House voted Tuesday, 228-196, to pass the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” which bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
While Republicans like Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn refer to gruesome examples like Doctor Kermit Gosnell and the dangers of unregulated abortions, Democratic senators like Barbara Boxer call House Republicans’ actions a continuation of the war on women.
Boxer told Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday that the 20-week abortion ban “is about hurting women. And what’s interesting,” she continued, “is they put their rightwing women members of Congress in the front of the line to face this. That’s just changing the messenger; it’s not changing the message–and the message to women is, you don’t really count. And the message to everyone in the country is we’re willing, this is them speaking, to overturn forty years of settled law just to appeal to our right wing base while they ignore the issues confronting the nation.”
Ali Vitali is MS NOW's senior congressional correspondent and the host of "Way Too Early." She is the author of "Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House … Yet."