Elections

Obama camp claims Romney hiding true abortion views

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The Obama campaign claims Mitt Romney is attempting to “hide” his real, “extreme” views on womens issues, specifically abortion.

On a Wednesday morning conference call with reporters, Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter and Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards slammed the Republican presidential candidate for running away from the views he espoused during the Republican primary. In an interview with the Des Moines Register Tuesday, Romney said he did not have any abortion-related legislation on his agenda, though he noted he would re-instate the Mexico City policy, which bans private groups from using federal funds for abortions.

“Romney is trying to hide what he believes, but there is no hiding as president,” Cutter said.

“His severely conservative positions that got him through the primaries are still there, and they have been there for six years, and now he is trying to cover them up because he knows they hurt women, seniors, and the middle class and they hurt his chances for winning the presidency so even the ‘real Romney’ can’t cover that up,” Cutter added, claiming Romney is engaged in an effort to soften his views.

Richards echoed Cutter, pushing the idea that Romney’s words are not about flip-flopping but concealing his unpopular stances.

“It may be confusing for women where Romney stands on this issue,” Richards said, detailing that Romney opposes government funding for the abortion provider Planned Parenthood, the HHS contraception mandate, Roe vs. Wade, and the federally funded national family planning program.

“Women frankly just can’t trust Mitt Romney,” Richards added.

The claim that Romney is hiding his real views, comes as the campaign and its surrogates have been attempting to paint Romney as dishonest, an effort that has intensified following the president’s poor debate performance against Romney last week.

On the call Cutter further attacked the Romney line that women are more interested in the economy than social issue demagoguery.

“He is banking on the fact — and I hear this from his operatives all the time — that, well, women are more interested in X or Y and that these are simply social issues, and the truth is they are not. I travel around the country, for women the thought that their daughters, their granddaughters would live in a post-Roe world in which we were literally re-litigating in the United States of America whether or not women could make their own personal, private decisions about having children is just unthinkable.”

Romney’s support among women voters has grown substantially in recent weeks. A Pew Research Center survey released Monday found that Romney had pulled even with Obama in support among likely voting women, both with 47 percent of the female vote. Last month Pew had Obama with an 18 point lead among women.

After Romney’s abortion claims to the Iowa paper, campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul reiterated the GOP candidate’s pro-life stance.

“Gov. Romney would of course support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life,” Saul emailed National Review, and told NBC News that “Mitt Romney is proudly pro-life, and he will be a pro-life president.”

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