NRCC chairman Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) on Sunday said that if Democrats want to make abortion an issue in their midterm election campaigns, Republicans will put them on defense for supporting extreme abortion-rights legislation, which he called a “Chinese genocide bill.”
In an interview on Fox News, Emmer denied that the National Republican Congressional Committee is pressuring GOP candidates to distance themselves from pro-life statements they made in the primaries to appeal to moderate voters in the general election. The Washington Post reported on Aug. 30 that at least nine GOP congressional candidates have “scrubbed or amended references to Trump or abortion from their online profiles in recent months.”
“I’m not going to repeat the way the Washington Post reports things,” Emmer told Fox News host Mike Emmanuel on Sunday. “I trust our candidates to know their districts and know how they’re going to appeal to their voters, to the voters that are going to turn out in November and elect them to the next Congress.
“That being said, if Democrats want to make abortion the main issue when every poll we have seen says that the economy and the cost of living is the number one issue, good luck to them trying to defend their extreme position,” he continued.
“Every one of them voted for what I call the Chinese genocide bill, which would allow abortion up to moments before a child takes its first breath,” Emmer said. “I think our candidates know how to message that and they’ll be just fine in the midterms.”
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GOPer Tom Emmer compares women’s rights to ‘Chinese genocide’ youtu.be
Emmer was referring to the Women’s Health Protection Act, a Democratic bill that would codify abortion rights in federal law and override state abortion restrictions. Pro-life activists say the bill would effectively legalize abortion up to the moment of birth by repealing state laws and prohibiting new laws from being passed to regulate abortion and the abortion industry. Democrats say the bill creates needed protections for women’s rights and access to “health care.” The House voted 219-210 in July to pass the abortion rights bill, but it failed to advance in the Senate, where Republicans filibustered.
China infamously enacted a one-child policy in 1979 that prohibited families from having more than one child. The law led to forced abortions — and cultural preference for sons meant that millions of girls were killed in the womb. The Chinese government ended the policy in 2018, amid concerns there were not enough young people to care for the country’s aging population.
With the elections nine weeks away, some Republicans have expressed concerns that backlash against the Supreme Court’s groundbreaking June decision overturning Roe v. Wade has energized Democratic voters. Political prognosticators who spoke to the Associated Press predict that the GOP will only pick up 10 to 20 seats in the House of Representatives, handing them a narrow majority. They are also doubtful Republicans will win key Senate races needed to take control of the chamber or high-stakes gubernatorial contests in states like Arizona and Pennsylvania, where Donald Trump endorsed candidates who claim the 2020 presidential election was illegitimate.
(h/t: NextShark)