Former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway urged Republican presidential candidates to take an “authentic and consistent” stance on abortion rather than ignore the issue and punt it to the states during a press conference to commemorate the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Conway held a press conference on Tuesday with the leading national pro-life group, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, to commemorate the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Conway called on pro-life activists to apply pressure on pro-choice Democrats, who she described as the actual “extremists on abortion.”
“I think it’s the pro-life community that’s often asked – always asked, ‘What are your exceptions?’ And I would challenge the pro-abortion community and say the same thing. I’ll show you my exceptions but you show me yours first,” Conway said. “What are your exemptions to abortion, anyone, anytime, anywhere, anyhow, which is essentially the position of the Democratic Party.”
Conway proposed a federal restriction on abortion after 15 weeks, arguing that “There is a role for a federal minimum standard.”
“Fifteen weeks of course, let me repeat, is in the second trimester. You’re up to the vast majority of Americans agreeing with that and rejecting these extremes, which really are owned by the Democratic Party at this point,” Conway said. “They are the extremists on abortion. If you ask them, ‘What are your exceptions?’ They usually can’t come up with any.”
“I would have challenged the Democrats to meet us at 15 weeks. So if the federal minimum standard’s at 15 weeks, and the Democrats are 40, 39, maybe some of them on a good day, 35 weeks, and yet babies are being born and surviving and thriving at 22 weeks…” Conway noted.
Conway also emphasized the importance of being “pro-life in utero and being pro-life forever” and highlighted the work of pregnancy resource centers, adoption centers, and foster care facilities.
She urged the pro-life movement to “work hard to pass policies that make it so that pro-life is not a matter of winning, so much as saving and making sure that we are consistent throughout their entire life.”
Conway praised her former boss, former President Donald Trump, for increasing “support for community- based health clinics, which outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities.”
Conway, who became the first woman to run a successful presidential campaign with Trump’s 2016 victory, spoke about the 2024 Republican presidential primary and urged candidates to take a stance on abortion rather than avoid it under the guise of “states’ rights.”
“If you are a presidential candidate on the Republican side – in fact, if you are running for the Senate, or if you’re running for Congress, and you say,’ Gee the Dobbs decision now has turned this back to the States, therefore I wash my hands so I don’t have to say anything,’ that is just false,” Conway said. “If anyone says that as an excuse for a reason they’re wrong.”
“iIf you want to run for president you have to have a position on this and [the] position has to be clear and it has to be authentic and consistent,” she continued.
Conway then chided candidates like Nikki Haley, who suggested a national abortion restriction is impossible due to a lack of votes in Congress.
She said:
But this excuse that it’s a states rights issue, then, or that we don’t have the votes to pass it. If you, as president, Nikki Haley, said that not so long ago, if a president didn’t try to help the country in some way or keep a promise because the excuse is they don’t have quote the votes, then nothing would ever get done in Washington. So and I would just say to those candidates who seemed to be at like one percent, two percent, three percent in the polls, it doesn’t look like you have the votes right now. So under your own analysis, you can suspend your campaign, and then we’ll never have to worry about your position on abortion.
Conway recognized that if national politicians fail to take a stance on abortion because it is a “local” issue, they would have to do the same for other local issues, such as education or policing.
Conway said the abortion issue provides Republican presidential candidates with an opportunity to open “hearts and minds to learn the truth about the political party, to learn the truth about the scientific development and the preciousness of life and to know the truth about abortion in 2023 in this nation.”
Conway also suggested Republican candidates emphasize that pro-lifers living in blue states have “an entire party that fails to represent pro-lifers within their states.”
“You’re not allowed to be pro -ife in the Democratic Party and have a job in Washington DC in the federal government. That’s just period dead stop. So there’s never been such a bright line distinction, and that we now have an entire party that fails to represent pro-lifers within their states,” Conway said.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.
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