CV NEWS FEED // CatholicVote Director of Governmental Affairs Tom McClusky warned against federal Republican lawmakers increasingly collaborating with Democrats on essential life issues such as abortion, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), and contraception.
“In this current election, voter attention is focused squarely on inflation, the border, crime, and the economy,” McClusky said.
“That is why Joe Biden and the Democrats are working so hard to instead have voters focus on issues that the Democrats feel they are stronger on. Topics like abortion, IVF, and contraception,” he explained.
“So what do the Republicans want to focus on?” McClusky asked. “You guessed it: abortion, IVF, and contraception!”
McClusky went on:
The Democrats, in control of the U.S. Senate, are putting up bills to make Republicans take hard votes. Instead of dismissing these show votes for what they are – political theater – Republicans are offering up alternatives on the topics that go against many of the Party’s longstanding pro-life principles. What we end up with is a really really bad Democratic bill and a nearly-as-bad Republican bill – Democrat-lite so to speak.
McClusky offered detailed examples.
IVF
“On the issue of IVF, the messaging bill from the Democrats is a horror show,” he explained.
The legislation introduced by a group of Democratic senators led by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-IL, “not only allows for an unregulated, multiple-embryo-destroying, parent–less IVF industry,” but “also allows for human cloning, animal-human hybrids and more, all at taxpayer expense.”
In addition, the bill defines infertility in such a way that “any two people, regardless of gender, are covered,” meaning that “two men would be defined as infertile and able to have taxpayers pay for their surrogacy.”
Controversially, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz, R-TX, and Katie Britt, R-AL, answered with their own pro-IVF bill.
McClusky conceded it was a “little better” than Duckworth’s more extreme bill, but also stated that Cruz and Britt’s bill still “propagates lies about infertility, IVF, and the billion-dollar assisted reproductive technology industry.”
“It protects that industry from state regulations while doing nothing to protect families from the dangerous business,” he noted. “To add insult to injury, the two senators are claiming what they are doing is pro-life, even though it clearly isn’t.”
>> CATHOLIC SCHOLAR: CRUZ IVF BILL WILL FEED A DEMOCRATIC NARRATIVE <<
Cruz and Britt wrote in a May 19 Wall Street Journal op-ed: “As Republican senators from Texas and Alabama, we’re united on many issues, including the need to protect both life and access to IVF treatments, which many families rely on to have children.”
“IVF is profoundly pro-family,” they claimed later in the piece.
McClusky, whose concerns are shared by many pro-life Republican voters, disagreed. Cruz and Britt’s silence during past legislative fights for the pro-life cause, “including refusing to help Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL, fight against abortion in the military,” is “mismatched to the zeal” with which the two Republican senators are now “trying to force this bill on their Republican colleagues.”
Contraception
“On the issue of contraception, the Democrats have a bill that claims to protect contraception, but instead pushes abortion and child sterilization while removing any federal and state protections for those with conscience or religious objections,” said McClusky.
On Wednesday, Senate Democrats brought the Right to Contraception Act to a vote. Critics denounced the move as a partisan messaging ploy that undermined women’s health.
American Principles Project (APP) President Terry Schilling called the legislation a “Trojan horse” for subjecting children to “transgender” procedures.
As expected, the bill failed. Fifty-one senators voted in favor, short of the 60 required votes for it to advance and avoid a filibuster.
>> CATHOLIC LEADER: CONTRACEPTION BILL A ‘TROJAN HORSE’ FOR PUSHING ‘TRANS’ ON KIDS <<
However, some Republican lawmakers responded to Democrats’ introduction of the bill by doubling down on their own support for contraception.
“Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, R-IA, instead of pointing out the extremes of her Democratic colleagues, instead introduced legislation to protect contraception, including drugs that may induce abortion,” McClusky recounted. “This is the same Joni Ernst who, instead of standing up for military families and military regulations regarding abortion, attacked Sen. Tuberville for doing what she was not brave enough to do.”
McClusky indicated that “[o]ne notable exception on messaging has been Senator Marco Rubio, R-FL, who repeatedly turns the Democrats’ messaging against reporters and pivots to points he wants to make.”
McClusky pointed to a recent response Rubio gave to a reporter who asked him: “If Republicans don’t want to restrict access to contraception, why not just vote in favor of this bill?”
The senator simply asked the reporter: “Do you know any Republican that wants to restrict access to contraception? If you can name me one, I’ll answer your question.”
When the reporter did not name a single Republican, Rubio continued, “I’m asking why do you need a law to address a problem that doesn’t exist?”
“But it will create new problems,” he added, because the bill in question “supersedes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
Rubio continued:
But no one here has been able to point to one single … elected official in America who’s saying, “I am going to ban contraception.” It’s just a ridiculous non-issue. But it’s the kind of thing they bring up … for election years … it’s cynical, it doesn’t work, but they’ll do it.
And meanwhile … another couple thousand people will illegally enter the country today.
The GOP’s Winning Issue
McClusky said that, aside from Rubio, many Senate Republicans are “not even able to message correctly on an issue they are winning on – immigration.”
He highlighted a widely panned “border deal” that has failed to pass the Senate on multiple occasions:
Instead of trying to force multiple votes on the House immigration bill, H.R. 2, which had policies that actually protected U.S. borders, Sen. James Lankford, R-OK, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, threw away the text of H.R. 2 and sat down with the Democrats to draft a bill with mostly Democratic priorities that protected liberal sanctuary cities while doing nothing to curtail illegal immigration.
The result of Sens. Lankford and McConnell’s actions? Giving the Democrats a talking point to defend themselves against Republicans pointing out they are weak on protecting our border.
>> RELATED: SENATOR SLAMS DEMS’ ‘DECEPTIVE’ CONTRACEPTION BILL <<
