No Matter What He Says — or Doesn't — J.D. Vance is a Danger to Our Reproductive Freedom
For Immediate Release: July 17, 2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Regardless of what GOP Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance says — or more likely, doesn’t — in his speech at tonight’s Republican National Convention, he remains a danger to our reproductive freedom. From supporting a national abortion ban, to voting to block nationwide access to IVF, Vance has consistently attacked reproductive freedom throughout his career — and he would take that dangerous record to the White House. Since his announcement as Trump’s running mate, report after report has come out further detailing Vance’s disturbing beliefs on abortion and gender equity. Just look at what’s been said in the press.
J.D. Vance is following the 2024 anti-abortion playbook and covering up his online trail of deeply unpopular- views. As reported by the Huffington Post, as recently as Monday evening, Vance’s Senate website spelled out his views on abortion under the all-caps title, “END ABORTION.” By Tuesday afternoon, the abortion language was gone.
Vance is still totally on board with a national abortion ban. Vance has pushed the idea that abortion should be “primarily a state issue,” and while some media outlets are taking that statement to mean that he opposes a national abortion ban, that’s just not true. In the same interview, Vance went on to say, “I think it’s fine to sort of set some national minimum standard.” That’s abortion opposition code for “national ban,” and voters won’t be fooled.
Vance is intimately tied to Project 2025, the plot to undermine our fundamental rights in a new conservative presidential administration. Vance is a champion of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that led Project 2025’s development. Heritage founder Kevin Roberts praised Vance on Monday as “a man who personifies hope for our nation’s future.” And Vance, in turn, has said that Project 2025 has “some good ideas.” Coincidence? We think not.
Vance has argued against exceptions to abortion ban and called pregnancies resulting from rape and incest “inconveniences.” Mother Jones noted that Vance said of abortion under these circumstances, “I think two wrongs don’t make a right.” Vance went on to say, “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, it’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society,” Vance said. “The question really, to me, is about the baby.”
Vance wants law enforcement to be able to snoop in our reproductive health records and track people having abortions in other states. The Lever reports that last June, Vance pressured regulators to rescind a critical data privacy rule established by the Biden administration that protects people’s reproductive health records from law enforcement investigations. Allowing surveillance of pregnant people and people who travel for abortion care is also high on the list of goals in Project 2025,
Vance made remarks about domestic violence that imply people should stay in abusive marriages. The Guardian highlighted Vance’s 2021 remarks on marriage and divorce: “This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that, like: ‘Well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term.”
Vance called people who fear having kids “cat ladies.” J.D.’s missing the point. Cat ladies across the country agree: we all deserve the freedom to decide whether and when to become a parent — to a human or any other being.
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