Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred told The Daily Caller that she is supporting President Obama because he “cares” about protecting women’s rights while Republican nominee Mitt Romney will “take away our contraceptives.”
TheDC asked Allred at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday if she thinks Republicans are waging a “war on women” as Democrats, including House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, have claimed.
“Yes, there is definitely a war on women. The idea that a Republican like Representative Todd Akin could even use the term ‘legitimate rape’ — even though he apologized for some of what he said after — the idea that in the Republican platform it essentially states that there should not be abortions even in cases of rape or incest or even where the life of the mother is endangered, that’s completely extremist,” Allred told TheDC. “That is a war on women.”
“I am a woman who was alive when abortion was illegal in this country, not for women to have it but for a doctor to give it. I am a rape victim who got pregnant and had to have that abortion and almost died because the abortion was unsafe and illegal and had to be hospitalized with a high fever and hemorrhaging so yes, I do believe that abortion must be safe and legal. It will be safe and legal if President Obama is re-elected.”
“Do I trust Romney and Ryan with my reproductive rights and the control over my body and my daughter’s and my granddaughter’s body? Absolutely not. This is not close,” Allred said.
Allred’s clients have included adult film star Ginger Lee, who was involved in the Anthony Weiner scandal; Rachel Uchitel, who had an affair with golf legend Tiger Woods; and the family of Nicole Brown Simpson during the O.J. Simpson trial.
TheDC also asked Allred about Mitt Romney’s claim that President Obama has declared a “war on religion” by requiring religious institutions to pay for health insurance plans that cover contraception as part of his health care reform law.
“Absolutely nonsense,” said Allred. “If they are employers and they are employing employees who are not Catholic and in some cases taking federal funds as well, absolutely there should be a health plan, which includes the right to receive contraceptives — and yes, to have abortions — if the employees need it or want it.”
“I really think it is wrong for them to attempt to impose their religious ideology and views, their extreme views, on others who do not share those religious views.”
If some Americans morally disagree with abortion, Allred said, they should still be required to fund organizations like Planned Parenthood with their tax dollars. She called their objections “moral nonsense and gobbledygook.”
“There’s some people who morally object to war but they still have to pay their taxes. So people have to pay taxes for public policy decisions made by elected officials if it is appropriate to do so,” she told TheDC.
“We are not going to go back to those days when more women died or were maimed by illegal abortions than men ever died in Vietnam or were maimed there — it was our ‘war on women’ and it’s continuing today. They want to take us backwards to those times. We’re going forward. They’re not going to take away our contraceptives. They’re not going to take our right to decide for ourselves. We trust women. We don’t trust the men in Washington to decide when we can or cannot use contraceptives or have an abortion.”
Allred, 71, attacked Romney specifically when asked if she is better off now than she was four years ago.
“I am much better off than I was four years ago because President Barack Obama represents the values that I care about and he cares about me. He cares about the clients that I represent who are typical working people who are often victims of injustice — economic injustice — [and] violence against them. He cares about the powerless,” she told TheDC.
“Mitt Romney made it: Good for him. What about everyone else? Don’t they deserve an equal opportunity to make it? I think so, and I think President Barack Obama understands that because he came up the hard way. He didn’t have that silver spoon in his mouth that Mitt Romney had.”