Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Wednesday politicians who are not supportive of the right-to-life cause are “the first ones” to “sell out to the D.C. establishment” in other political battles as well.
In an interview Wednesday with the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Mary Margaret Olohan, DeSantis responded to Olohan’s question about how American voters can distinguish between a superficial politician who simply wants their votes to get ahead, and one who is willing to fully engage in the important cultural battles.
One of the keys to determining that character difference lies in whether the politician is truly supportive of the right to life, the governor said.
“I think, here’s what I tell people, in terms of right to life,” he explained. “It’s important, obviously on its own, but the people that, that aren’t supportive of the life cause, they’re not people you want to be in a foxhole with on any other political battle as well.”
“They’re the first ones that will sell out to the D.C. establishment, when the going gets really, really tough,” he asserted.
DeSantis observed his own experience with the issue of life since becoming governor:
Well here’s the thing on right to life. When I became governor, I inherited the most liberal Supreme Court in the United States: there was a four to three split by the time I became governor. But I was able to replace three of the liberals to make it a six to one court, and that’s important because Florida had the worst abortion jurisdiction – jurisprudence – in the country, way worse than even things like Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
The governor noted that, prior to his administration, even laws requiring parents to be notified before their minor daughters had abortions were easily struck down in his state.
“It was, it was crazy,” DeSantis said. “So, we’ve changed that. Now we’ve been able to advance pro-life legislation.”
“Now, some of this stuff is going to be, going to be tested in our state courts, but I think those precedents are going to be reevaluated,” he reasoned. “And so, we have an opportunity to do even more in the years ahead.”