Tick Tock: It’s Been Two Days and Romney is Still Silent on Mourdock

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 01:48 pm

Tick tock. It’s been two days since Richard Mourdock outraged women and many men with his comments on pregnancies resulting from rape being a gift from God and Mitt Romney has yet to say anything personally about it. Instead, Romney is running away from reporters’ questions and pointedly not asking Mourdock to pull the ad. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz isn’t having any of that.

On MSNBC this afternoon, Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz called Romney out on his silence and said that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin are “two sets of twins” when it comes to their extreme views regarding women’s health.

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TRANSCRIPT

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: This is deeply concerning to women because it shows just how deeply embedded the extremism is on women’s health in the Republican Party. You have Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin who are essentially two sets of twins when it comes to issues related to women’s health. Mitt Romney, like you said, has cut an ad, this is the only candidate in the country that he has done an ad for. He’s endorsed Richard Mourdock and now he won’t even say, two days has passed, since Richard Mourdock has said that the pregnancy resulting from a rape was intended by God and was a gift from God and Mitt Romney is avoiding directly saying himself, he’s only — he’s only said this through a spokesperson that he doesn’t agree with the views. He still endorses him, refuses to renounce his endorsement, and won’t pull the ad. Paul Ryan, his running mate, Andrea, has said that it doesn’t matter what — how a life was — pregnancy was conceived. The method of conception doesn’t matter. Todd Akin said that there was something called legitimate rape and Richard Mourdock said that the pregnancy’s from rape are a gift from God. These are two sets of twins that really women I think all across the country are deeply disturbed about Mitt Romney’s views on women’s health. Remember, Mitt Romney also said that when it comes to abortion, he would be delighted to sign a total ban on abortion. The extremism is beyond comprehension.

Two days? Someone better get Romney a copy of My Pet Goat so he can distract himself Republican style while Rome burns.

What does Mitt Romney not get? This involves life and death issues for American women. Hearing these Republicans say that our lives aren’t worth as much as a fetus and that we should be forced by the government to carry a rapist’s child to term is alarming, especially when the candidate for President is so closely aligned with these beliefs and refuses to distance himself in a meaningful way or even give the appearance of standing up to such extremism.

We know by now that Mitt Romney doesn’t give a hoot about women’s freedom. He stands in opposition to all of the gains made in the 60s and 70s for women. The best we’re going to get from him is benevolent patriarchy, and that’s only if we play Good Girl to his Alpha Male. In other words, he’ll let us off early from our non-business related helper job to go home to cook dinner, as he simpered in the second debate.

But politically, aside from the surreal stance Romney is taking on this issue, Mitt Romney is showing Americans that he is not a leader. He refuses to stand up to an unelected candidate and the fringe of his base, but he wants you to believe that he will stand up to China, Putin, and Ahmadinejad.

The fact that it’s taken two days and still we’ve gotten nothing but a statement from the Romney campaign (whose biggest job seems to be to clarify and reposition the Republican candidate as soon as he opens his mouth) instead of Mitt Romney himself tells women all they need to know about where they stand on Romney’s list of priorities.

Sarah Jones

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