Despite calling abortion bans that impact Republican officials a “personal matter,” GOP lawmakers are issuing abortion bans that take away the personal rights of women nationwide. After a Facebook post from 2012 by North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson detailing how he paid for his now-wife’s abortion resurfaced, the North Carolina Republican Party declined to comment on the issue, noting that the incident was a “personal matter.”
However, these same officials are advocating for extreme abortion bans in which rape and incest are not even included as exceptions.
“Everyone needs access to abortion, even Mark Robinson,” North Carolina Democratic Party spokeswoman Rachel Stein said in a statement. “People from all walks of life – and political parties – have experiences with abortion. The North Carolina Republican Party ought to offer the same respect and privacy to every pregnant person’s health care decisions that they are giving to the Lieutenant Governor.”
Robinson, the highest-ranking North Carolina Republican, said he paid for someone to have an abortion decades ago. “I’m not saying abortion is wrong cause I said so. It's wrong cause God says so,” Robinson’s post read. In a comment on the same post, he said: “It's wrong when others do it and it was wrong when I paid for it to be done to my unborn child in 1989.”
Since his entire campaign is based on anti-abortion policies, the post drew heavy criticism, prompting him to create a video addressing the questions.
“Over 33 years ago, before we were married and before we had kids, we had an abortion,” Robinson said in a video statement with his wife Yolanda by his side, according to WBTW. “It was the hardest decision we ever made. And sadly, we made the wrong one.”
While Republicans failed to comment on the issue, Democrats reacted
“They had a chance to make a choice,” said Johnelle Causwell of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party. “And now he’s saying that women should not be able to make that choice for themselves, but that’s a government body should make that choice for them? That is hypocritical.”
Causwell added, “It’s not fair to take that choice away from women and to disparage women when they had the right to make that choice that was granted to them and by the laws and by this legal system.”
Abortion bans are being introduced across the country at a rapid rate. At least 15 GOP-majority states have introduced bills that ban abortion despite circumstances of incest or rape, with some proposed bans beginning as early as 30 days after conception.
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