Mitt Romney has recently been under fire from his GOP rivals over a 2005 Massachusetts law mandating that all hospitals, including Catholic ones, offer the morning-after pill to rape victims.
“In December 2005, Governor Mitt Romney required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims,” charged Rick Santorum in a Politico op-ed this week. “The fact is,” said Newt Gingrich on Wednesday, “Governor Romney insisted that Catholic hospitals give out abortion pills against their religious belief when he was governor.”
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Romney’s campaign has pushed back on this narrative forcefully, pointing to Romney’s decision in July 2005 to veto the bill Santorum and Gingrich have referenced, which mandated that all Catholic hospitals provide the morning-after pill to all rape victims. (The Church instructs hospitals to first test whether a rape victim has conceived; if she has not, the morning-after pill may be given to prevent conception.) Romney not only vetoed the bill, but forcefully spoke up against it.
“Yesterday I vetoed a bill that the Legislature forwarded to my desk,” Romney wrote in a Boston Globe op-ed. “Though described by its sponsors as a measure relating to contraception, there is more to it than that. The bill does not involve only the prevention of conception: The drug it authorizes would also terminate life after conception.”
Unsurprisingly, the Massachusetts legislature overrode Romney’s veto. It wasn’t a close vote, either: State senators unanimously voted for the bill, joined by 139 House members. Only 16 House members voted to uphold the veto.
But the saga didn’t end there. On December 7, the state’s Department of Public Health stated that Catholic hospitals remained legally exempt from the mandate to distribute emergency contraception, despite the fact that the new law included no religious exemption. The department contended that the new law did not nullify a 1975 statute that did provide an exemption for hospitals that wished not to provide abortion or contraception for religious reasons.
“We feel very clearly that the two laws don’t cancel each other out and basically work in harmony with each other,” department commissioner Paul Cote Jr. told the Boston Globe.
Romney is what he is a liberal liar. He is not a conservative. His speech yesterday reinforced the fact that he will say anything to get the nomination. He is a liberal loser and will lose to Obama in a landslide.
I fail to see how this story justifies the headline, which implies Romney flip-flopped on contraception. He vetoed the bill, had his veto overridden, and then went with the advice of his lawyer that his objection to enforcement could not be supported by law. You can argue with the legal interpretation, and perhaps Romney should have, put in Massachusetts I doubt that would have been successful. In fact, Romney did not flip-flop but was overruled, based on the facts.
Didn't Romney go to Harvard Law School? This is just another example of how Romney changes his view and then blames anyone or everything else for his mistake.
This article loses some credibility for me when the sources quoted are Romney's two rivals. Religious and conservative leaders who were in the trenches with Romney during those years wrote an open letter 12/30/2011 to clearly denounce the accusations made against his record on marriage, abortion,and religious freedom. It can be found here: External Link
These are credible leaders who were there and saw Mitt as a champion who fought for them.
Gov. Romney's decision in 2005 crystallizes the 2012 nominee choice for me (pace' Mary Ann Glendon, for whom I have the highest respect, and who has defended Romney's actions). Romney was clearly caught in a political firestorm. At the moment of crisis, he caved. Abandoning his own DHS legal counsel's opinion, he capitulated, thereby condemning innocent lives and forcing the violation of conscience. Based on his personal and political history, I believe Rick Santorum would have upheld the conscience exemption, thereby protecting innocent human life. It's fundamental decision time in America. Gov. Romney would make a fine Commerce Secretary. But for President, we need someone with the intellect and spine to defend the most defenseless among us, amid the cacophonous yelps of the culture of death.
Mitt can't win. No matter how many times he explains the opposition he faced with an 85% Democratic legislation which blocked his attempts to ban contraception etc. It is not enough. He is fully pro life. He is fully conservative. Why do you continue to criticize him?
Is this really a hill worth dying on? Forcing rape victims to carry the children of their attackers? Can't we get past this Taliban mentality and deal with social issues of substance where actual behavior and lifestyle come into play, instead of turning a violent crime into a permanent, life-altering event? This is frankly sickening coming from the "party of personal responsibility".
"The Church" instructs hospitals to administer the "Morning After" pill as a contraceptive? I'm surprised to find the Vatican approves of any contraception. Could it be that the Bishop of the Boston Diocese approved this? Or some other US Bishop? Or, possibly, this is an error of the writer? A little more information would be really helpful to confused Roman Catholics reading this article.
Don't we have a similar story about Gov. Romney and the gay marriage legislation in MA? Wasn't there also a legal consultant that steered Romney into approving some gay marriages in spite of his being against them because the law left him without other options? Is this gong to be his style of organization when it comes to social issues or other issues? You begin to wonder who will govern if Romney is elected. He needs to re-assure us about how he approaches hot button issues.
Romney's mistake was being governor in a state like Mass, if had just skipped that and the Olympics and making fortune with Bain then he would have these problems. Maybe, if he had been a postal worker, he could have avoided all possible mistakes. People who do things open themselves for criticism. People just want a talker not a doer. I hope they will enjoy the unemployment lines, shortages, inflation, things to come if we do not win this election. I really want to hear the micro criticizing of a Romney Presidency that wasn't. In their quest for imagined perfection, we are going to lose. I want a victory no matter how Hollow Santorum thinks it will be. Romney will be a fine President if he gets the chance but it is not the Left who will defeat him, it will be the Right. They don't call the Republicans, the "Stupid Party" for nothing.
“My personal view in my heart of hearts is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraceptives or emergency contraceptive information …”
I don't understand what Romney could have done differently on this.
He vetoed the law. It was overridden by the legislature. He wasn't the emporer of Massachusetts.
Massachusetts Citizens for Life, the people who were actually on the ground and understand the issue, think he did the right thing and fought for them. But people who didn't know anything about this issue in Massachusetts 5 minutes ago know better?
Interesting.
I like Santorum and I particularly appreciate his leadership on life issues, but I think he's misleading people on this. He's better than that.
His record is far from perfect period. As a Governor he was a moderate.That was 6 years ago before he got Conservative religion. Why would he govern any differently than he did then????? Better yet, he represented himself to the Massachusetts Electorate as an Independent Progressive....but did not govern that way. So are we to believe this man who now says he is a Conservative and will do all of these Conservative things once he gets into office?????? It is foolishness to believe anything this man says now.
Your thought process is actually flawed since Reagan was the 1st CA Gov to pass CA law legalizing abortion. Plz. do me and your readers a favor and read up on your facts & history prior to writing anything in the future. And I AM a CA R Conservation Catholic who recalls all Reagan's anti-life problems. Also being a flip-flopper means that the person turned & then turned again. Romney has done no such thing. Like any reasonable adult when faced w/a major issue, he took a stand, when faced w/new evidence contrary to his stand, he change his mind. That's what mature adults do in case you haven't noticed. People do change their minds. Romney has not changed his mind again on contraception as you purport. Get a new job. You're a religious bigot hiding behind trumped up charges which will help "O" to have another term. May God have mercy on you for your warped views.
The fact that you make such a big issue about contraception is the biggest reason I regret calling myself a conservative. Out of all of the issues this country has, THIS makes headlines. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Captcha is "good work". If only it were.
What an incredibly dishonest headline! This was a legal issue. Should he have ignored the law? Do we, as conservatives, not believe in the rule of law anymore? Or do we only believe it when it serves our own purposes?
So in Sura 2, Romney wrote, "Let there be no compulsion in abortion."
Then later in Sura 9 he wrote, "Slay the unborn wherever you find them. Apprehend them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them," abrogating all conflicting earlier statements.
Now his disciples are deliberately being cute, citing the defunct Sura 2 as if it were the only and final word on the matter. It wasn't, and they and Romney should be called on this every time they try to pretend that Mitt's final turn ended on flip when in fact it ended on flop. Thank you for laying out the full chronology like this, Katrina.
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