Stating his belief that all unborn children’s lives should be protected, Senator Ted Cruz expressed his opposition to exceptional access to abortion for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Joining Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly for a town hall event in Madison on Monday, Cruz made a pitch to Wisconsin voters before the Badger’s State’s Republican primary on Tuesday.
“You don’t favor rape or an incest exception to abortion,” said Kelly, speculating that Cruz’s position on abortion might be “too far-right” for voters.
Recalling his former role as the Solicitor General for Texas, Cruz described his experience from the side of law enforcement in redressing rape.
“When it comes to rape, I’ve spent a lot of year in law enforcement. I was the Solicitor General for the state of Texas, and I have handled horrific cases of rape, people who had committed child rape. I went before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued in defense of state laws imposing capital punishment for the very worst of child rapists,” said Cruz.
Cruz then expressed the logically consistent position of opposition to abortion grounded in the belief that unborn children are persons entitled to the protections of life and security of person, opting not to carve out exceptions to this position for conceptions resulting from rape or incest.
“When it comes to rape, rape is a horrific crime against the humanity of a person, and needs to be punished, and punished severely. But at the same time, as horrible as that crime is, I don’t believe it’s the child’s fault, Said Cruz. “I don’t believe it makes sense to blame the child.”
Repudiating Roe v. Wade’s imposition of lawful access to abortion across the country, Cruz stated that the decision of legality of abortion should be determined by states.
Responding to Donald Trump’s comments last week calling for the punishment of women electing to abort their unborn children within the context of criminalized abortion, Cruz said it demonstrated a lack of contemplation over the issue on the Republican front-runner’s behalf.
“It was a bizarre statement saying that he believed women should be punished. It showed that he’s not considered seriously this issue or many of the issues facing this country, that he’s really just willing to say whatever he can say to win votes,” said Cruz.
Casting Trump as an insincere opponent of abortion who based his views of genuine abortion opponents on dishonest caricatures of their position from left-wing media, Cruz said Trump was spontaneously assembling political positions on abortion in an ad hoc manner.
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