NARAL launches website to zing GOP candidates on birth control, abortion

A pro-choice organization has created a website to make sure Republican candidates “own” their remarks on birth control, abortion and women’s issues.

In the last election, Sen. Cory Gardner, Colorado Republican, ran away from his earlier support for personhood bills, while Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker softened his anti-abortion rhetoric to say a woman has the right to make her own decision, Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America told a Thursday media call.

The days are over when candidates can “Etch-a-Sketch” their positions away on these subjects, she said.

NARAL’s new website, ownit2016.org, is designed to make sure Republican candidates’ words are captured — clearly and openly — so they can’t run away from them or be silent on them, Ms. Hogue said, adding that pro-choice advocates will be challenging presidential contenders at this weekend’s event led by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition in Waukee, Iowa.

NARAL’s new website already has footnoted reports on 14 declared or undecided candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, California business leader Carly Fiorina, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

Anna Greenberg, senior vice president of Greenberg Qunilan Rosner Research, noted that Republicans appeared to deliberately moderate their views on abortion, birth control and women’s issues in the 2014 election cycle. “Perhaps it’s not surprising, given that polling data clearly shows that threatening the safety and well-being of women and families has a negative consequence for candidates among Republican, Independent and Democratic voters of all ages,” Ms. Greenberg said.

Conversely, pro-life groups credited their attractive candidates, compelling arguments, and grassroots, get-out-the-vote campaigns for the Republican retaking of the U.S. Senate and election of many new pro-life candidates to federal and state offices.

Efforts to paint Republican candidates as part of a ’war on women’ “really backfired,” Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, said after the November election, according to the National Catholic Register.