Planned Parenthood is hitting all Republicans after Donald Trump said women who get abortions should receive “some form of punishment” if the procedure is outlawed.
Trump later walked back his controversial remarks, after being slammed by both sides, saying women who receive abortions are victims, and it is the doctors who perform them — were they banned — who should be punished.
“A plan to punish women who seek abortion is not news, it is the platform of the Republican Party,” Dawn Laguens, a top Planned Parenthood official, told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota Thursday. “This is real evidence of a party and candidates who are completely out of touch with women.”
While the GOP’s stated platform does offer a provision on protecting the sanctity of life, it does not call for punishing women who get abortions — in fact, anti-abortion groups also condemned Trump after his initial remarks.
Laguens also directly targeted GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich, citing their anti-abortion records.
“If you look at what’s been going on this country since 2010, led by John Kasich, Ted Cruz they have had an agenda to ‘punish women,’ to quote Trump,” Laguenes said. “Through making them drive 500 miles to get an abortion, and come three times to an appointment to take two pills, to stand outside of health centers and yell obscenities to doctors and women who go there, and to stand up for that.”
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton made a similar point Wednesday.
“The Republicans all line up together,” Clinton told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“Now maybe they aren’t quite as open about it as Donald Trump was earlier today, but they all have the same position,” she said. “If you make abortion a crime — you make it illegal — then you make women and doctors criminals.”
Despite Democrats’ attempts to paint them with the same brush, Trump’s fellow GOP candidates also condemned Trump’s remarks.
“Well, first of all, he united the pro-choice and pro-life groups, which, I don’t know how he did that,” Kasich said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” He also released a statement earlier in the morning: “The past 24 hours revealed in the clearest way yet that Donald Trump is not prepared to be president.”
Cruz contrasted himself with Trump telling ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel: “Being pro-life means standing and defending the unborn. But it also means defending moms. Defending women. And defending the incredible gift women have to bring life into the world. And Donald’s comments, they were unfortunate, they were wrong and I strongly disagree with it.”
