This is Sean Erenstoft’s commentary on the most recent position taken by the Republican Party, which is that women should be punished for exercising their rights on family planning. Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, expressed his hope that Republican voters would trust Trump to lead the party rather than him. This statement was made only this week. When asked whether he believes that Trump is the next leader of the Republican Party, Ryan said, “Good Lord, I hope it is, because the guy who is gaining the nomination is the person to lead our party.” This was in response to a question that asked him these thoughts. Nevertheless, Trump is now in the midst of his fourth iteration of his viewpoint about abortion. He has gone from claiming that the issue is established law to being committed to picking Supreme Court justices who would overturn the precedent-setting judgment of Roe v. Wade at this point. In point of fact, he said to Chris Matthews of MSNBC in March of 2016 that there “has to be some type of penalty for women who have abortions.” Just last week, he contradicted that statement by saying, “I don’t believe that.” “Punishment for women, such as incarceration, was not what I meant. It is my contention that women are self-punishing.” To make things even more complicated, Trump’s own campaign issued remarks claiming that “the woman is the victim” and that abortion providers need to be held criminally liable in the event that abortions were prohibited. It is hard to predict what Trump would do if he were in administration since he has expressed so many viewpoints that are in direct opposition to one another over this hegemonic subject. Many people believe that his actions are an effort to win over a wider range of voters who favor abortion rights while yet retaining support from the establishment of anti-abortion activists and the religious right. In a similar manner, President Trump expressed uncertainty when he said that Planned Parenthood “does very wonderful job,” but that the organization should still be defunded if it continues to offer abortion services. As a matter of fact, his stance on this matter disregards the reality that Planned Parenthood does not (and cannot) utilize the funding that it gets from the government to finance abortions. Consequently, Trump is virtually in favor of cutting funds for family planning and mammograms. During the time that their nominee is deciding how to overturn fifty years of established law in the area of a woman’s right to choose, it appears that our contemporary Republican Party will be required to address their stated position that women should be punished for their health decisions and denied health support that is funded by the government. Sean Erenstoft is a civil rights attorney who resides in Los Angeles. He runs a mediation and arbitration practice and also gives his time to help veterans of the armed forces in obtaining the benefits that they so well deserve. In addition to that, he established a blog (www.superiorcourtblog.com).
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