Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that if the Republican Party were not perceived as the pro-family party but as taking away rights on abortion, they would lose elections.
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “Ohio’s new constitutional amendment went into effect Thursday. You said after it passed, we have to recognize how much voters mistrust us on this issue, us meaning Republicans. This week, the Texas Supreme Court is blocking a woman in Texas from obtaining an abortion even though her fetus has a rare genetic condition that is almost always fatal, and her doctors want her to be able to get this so she’s able to have babies in the future and for her health. Isn’t that situation an example of why many voters might not trust Republicans?”
Vance said, “Well, I don’t know the details of that story, Jake. But I will say that we have to accept that people do not want blanket abortion bans. They don’t. I say this as a person who wants to protect as many unborn babies as possible. And that is a basic necessity. And when people don’t trust us, what I’m getting at, I’ve been shocked by you go to the hospital, and you have a baby, and you get a $24,000 unexpected bill. What does this look like for a middle-class family?”
He added, “We’ve made it hard to have children and families in this country in that environment. If people see Republicans not as the party that is trying to make it easier to have babies but trying to take people’s rights away, then we’ll lose. I think we have to win the trust back of the American people, and one of the ways to do that is to be the pro-family party. I think we have, but we have to enact some public policy to that effect.”
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