Rep. Nancy Mace, South Carolina Republican, predicted Sunday that her party’s stance on abortion could prove troublesome come November’s midterm elections and end up benefitting Democrats.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade in June, striking down the longstanding federal protection for abortion and unleashing a wave of abortion restrictions in GOP-led states.
“I am staunchly pro-life. I have a 100% pro-life voting record. I do think that it will be an issue in November if we’re not moderating ourselves, that we are including exceptions for women who’ve been raped, for girls who are victims of incest and certainly in every instance where the life of the mother is at stake,” Ms. Mace said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
She emphasized that core concerns are that some states are trying to bar women from traveling to other states for the medical procedure, that one must immediately report a rape or that exceptions for rape and incest are not included.
She suggested that could drive voters away from the party as Democrats have made the lack of federal abortion protection a central campaign issue.
Ms. Mace, who was raped when she was 16 years old, sported a jacket last month in the U.S. Capitol with homemade writing on the back that said: “My state is banning exceptions, protect contraception.”
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South Carolina has a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy with exceptions that include the life of the mother, rape, incest or fetal anomaly. Republicans in the South Carolina Legislature have proposed removing the rape and incest exceptions.
“I was raped when I was 16, and it took me a week to tell my mother … I can’t tell you how traumatic that event was in my life. And my own home state, they want women to be required and mandated to report when they are raped, and I just can’t even imagine a world where you’re a girl, a teenage girl that been raped to have to report those things,” Ms. Mace said. “’Handmaid’s Tale’ is not supposed to be a roadmap.”
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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