Why won’t Vermont Republicans talk about Abortion?

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To understand this piece, you need to hear this part of the debate, starting at around the 33 minute mark, which I embedded in this previous piece.

The whole exchange lasts a little under four minutes.

There are two questions, and they’re yes or no questions, asked by Shumlin of Dubie:

  • if a bill arrived at your desk restricting a woman’s right to chose, would you sign it, and;

  • do you oppose abortion in the cases of rape and incest;

A lot of candidates are willing to answer these questions Dubie, however (like his running mate, Phil Scott) seems to hover around the issue like a fly trying to figure out which piece of fruit is the moldiest, yet still worried about getting smacked down in flight.

Len Britton, apparently, doesn’t want to answer the question at all.  If he has any opinion on abortion, he’s hidden it well enough that I can’t find it.

Beaudry, on the other hand, is willing to be quite specific:

Furthermore, Beaudry shared his views about the ongoing abortion controversy. He proudly stated that he is a “pro-life” candidate, with the obvious exceptions of rape, incest, and cases where the mother’s life is in danger. He also said that he is being fully endorsed by the Vermont Right to Life Political Committee along with gubernatorial candidate Brian Dubie.

Now– I’m pro-choice and have been for most of my adult life, but I know people who are anti-abortion, and I don’t necessarily think badly of them for that– I get where they’re coming from.  While I think that politicians often use pro-life issues in a fairly cynical fashion as wedge issues, they are able to do so because of the chunk of population that honestly believes abortion to be amoral.  

I’m not posting to argue that point.  More than a decade ago, I just gave up on arguing with people about abortion.  I can’t think of any case in the last fifteen years where I’ve had a discussion in which someone changed their mind about it, so I’m not here to discuss that.

I’m here to discuss integrity.  

There’s a history in this country of a stealth campaign on the part of activists on the religious right since the 1970’s.  They’d float school board candidates who would conceal their agenda until in a position of power.  That’s how you end up with situations such as a school in Connecticut attempting to hold a graduation in a Christian church.

I want to be clear: this is not about Christians or Christianity.  This is about a group of activists who are intentionally using stealth techniques to get into office by obscuring their extremism.  This is why, until this year, candidates like Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle, rarely had any electoral victories at all, even in primaries: they were too openly crazy to win anything.  

In Vermont, this embracing of wingnut right-wing idiocy has yet to manifest itself in a serious fashion, so our candidates who support extreme views need to be careful enough not to allow those views to see the light of day lest it leave them scorched and maimed.  

So let’s be clear about this: when a candidate refuses to answer a question about whether or not he thinks abortion is acceptable in the case of rape and incest?  There’s virtually nothing to lose by saying “I think that’s a perfectly acceptable exception” unless he is (a) strongly beholden to pro-life extremists or (b) is a pro-life extremist himself.  

There is no reason not to answer that question unless you don’t have the simple integrity to stand by what you believe.  

Cowards.  Every damned one of them.

23 thoughts on “Why won’t Vermont Republicans talk about Abortion?”

  3. Last Friday I received a “Message From Penny Dubie” that told me Peter Shumlin is using “fear to divide Vermonters” and that Brian is “a man of his word”.

    Here’s the reply I sent back via email:

    Dear Penny,

    Thank you for your email. While I appreciate and share your concern about the tenor of this election, I wonder if you’d be willing to answer the following two questions, as your husband appears unwilling to.

    If a bill arrived at Brian’s desk as Governor which restricted a woman’s right to choose, would he sign it?

    Does Brian oppose abortion in the cases of rape and incest?

    It’s not my intent to “bully” you into answering these questions, but as you so eloquently typed, “there is nothing wrong with disagreeing on the issues”. So, I’d like to know if there is a disagreement on this issue between Peter and Brian. I believe the best way to find out a candidate’s position on the issues is to ask questions of the candidates or their representatives. You appear to have chosen to represent him on this issue, so I look forward to your thoughtful reply to my questions.

    Thank you,

    Jason Farrell, Vergennes

    I’m not naive enough to believe that I’ll get a response from “Penny” anytime soon. In fact, I’ve written to both the Shumlin and Dubie campaigns on numerous occasions in reply to their email correspondence with me. To date, I’ve received exactly zero replies to my inquiries. It appears that email communication in the modern campaign is a tool for propaganda distribution and fundraising strictly and not a tool for correspondence with the electorate.

    How sad and uninspiring.

  4. it was Mary Alice, (who puts contributions to the Boys and Girls Club at risk in my opinion), Deb Rickter (or Ricker??) who is a major contributor to the Dubie Disaster Fund with her family and assorted companies, and several former GOP interns.  Not sure how many folks that identifies but it does lend a Vermont connection.   However, the language used by some of them is pretty narrow in what they are stating in terms of support of Dubie, and not that he is representing or they are behind his stand on medical freedom of choice or having that nasty government remain out of our lives.

    How a party can stand up and say that business entities can just run free without control using that get government out of our lives conversation, but justify that an individual needs a governors help to make healthcare decisions.  

  5. It seems par for the course during this cycle that few Republicans want to share any specifics about their positions.  Tea Baggers say stuff like, “this isn’t about details,” and “wait until I’m elected and then I can be specific.”  On local forums I hear, “well, I’m not ‘down there’ yet so I don’t know.”

    So of course Dubie’s gonna dodge this civil rights issue, because just like with healthcare and marriage equality, he’s on the wrong side of history and the Constitution (VT and US).  The funny thing is that he’s essentially made it an issue not just at the Gub level, but down-ticket races now.

    I had a supporter observe I’m the only pro-choice candidate running in Franklin-2, and that was a big differentiator between me and the other 4 partisans.  Yesterday at a meet-n-greet with Mike McCarthy, we were asked about our positions on reproductive freedom, precisely because Dubie has been avoiding it.

    As Shummy says, IT MATTERS.

  6. …I sure got an earful from a Republican today about marriage equality.  Good lord, it’s been a few months since I ran into a bigot on the trail, thankfully.

    Unlike Dubie, when directly questioned about my stance, I told him unequivocally that I support marriage equality as a civil rights issue.  I might’ve lost his vote before when he asked my religion and I copped to being Quaker, but it definitely evaporated after my later answer…

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