Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said Monday that the GOP has no interest in restricting women’s access to contraceptives, and that the “war on women” is just a phony issue concocted by Democrats.
When asked about “making contraception available to women” at a packed campaign stop in Bettendorf, Iowa, the Texas senator launched into a four-minute response, accusing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton of falsely attacking the GOP as “the condom police,” CNN reported.
“Hillary Clinton embraces abortion on demand in all circumstances up until the moment of birth. Partial-birth abortion with taxpayer funding, with no notification for parents in any circumstances — 91 percent of Americans say that’s nuts,” Mr. Cruz said. “So what do they do, they try to shift it. The war on women wasn’t that, it was contraceptives. Now listen, I have been a conservative my entire life. I have never met anybody, any conservative who wants to ban contraceptives.”
He said the charge that conservatives are anti-contraceptives is a “made-up, nonsense example.”
“Last I checked we don’t have a rubber shortage in America. When I was in college we had a machine in the bathroom, you put .50 cents in and voila!” Mr. Cruz said. “So yes, anyone who wants contraceptives can access them, but it’s an utterly made-up nonsense issue.
“Imagine for a second you’re Hillary Clinton,” he continued. “You’re trying to think, ’How do I run?’ Well you can’t run on the economy because we have the lowest percentage of Americans working any year since 1977. You can’t run on Obamacare because millions of people have lost their jobs, lost their health care, lost their doctors, seen their premiums skyrocket. You certainly can’t run on foreign policy because every country you touched as secretary of state is a disaster.
“So what do you do? You go, ’Ah, ha! Condom police. I’m going to make up a completely made up threat and try to scare a bunch of folks that are not paying a lot of attention into thinking someone’s going to steal their birth control.’ What nonsense.”
Mr. Cruz’s town halls on Monday wrapped up a three-day, 14-stop tour in Iowa.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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