Rita Dunaway: “Women Have Been Duped” by Democrats’ False Charges
The Background
Throughout the campaign for Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General, Democratic candidates are trying to win women’s votes on Nov. 5 by charging “extremist” Republicans with waging a “War on Women”. It includes the claim that they are even trying to ban contraceptives. However, this is totally and indisputably false, and they know it.
In addition, they have maligned the Republicans for supporting a law that requires abortion clinics to meet normal standards of health care for their female clients and another law that allows parents to file for “wrongful death” damages if their unborn child is killed in an accident. But how can those laws be wrong? The fact is that both of them are for the benefit of women, not their harm.
The Women’s Response
Fighting back, Rita Dunaway, Vice President of Public Policy for the Virginia Christian Alliance and VCA Board Members, Terry Beatley and Janet Welty joined a diverse group of Virginia women for a press conference in Richmond yesterday in which they blasted the Democrats for spreading these false charges.
In addition to their oral statements, the women also unveiled a new web site entitled “Women Sick of Stupid Lies” (click here) that includes Rita’s statement along with those of other women. They set the record straight about the “gender baiting” tactics the candidates are using to frighten women into voting for them.
Also attached below are edited excerpts from a separate article by Rita about the Democrats’ false charges about these issues.
For the Truth!
Dean Welty, Board Member of the Virginia Christian Alliance and Director of the Valley Family Forum
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Rita Dunaway: “Women Have Been Duped!”
“If polls are an accurate indicator, women have been duped into swallowing the lie that no-fault divorce is good for us and that any effort to regulate abortion clinics or recognize the basic humanity of unborn babies is nothing more than a sinister plot to control our bodies.
“For example, a widely-circulated political advertisement by Terry McAuliffe’s campaign attacked Ken Cuccinelli’s 2008 proposal to require a legal reason for divorce when there are children in the family. The ad deceptively made it appear that Cuccinelli’s bill would have only made it harder for women to leave their families.
“This, of course, was not the case. The law would actually have helped the countless struggling moms who have been left holding the bag when their husbands walked out on the family. No one benefits from making it ‘easy’ to abandon one’s family.
“But the fear-mongering tactic of this ad is also at work in the countless false assertions that Republican candidates have tried to outlaw birth control. Specifically, the Democratic candidates have repeatedly scoffed at the Republicans’ support of a so-called ‘personhood’ bill, claiming that it would outlaw abortion, birth control, and in vitro fertilization. But again, these statements are so verifiably false as to be beyond genuine debate.
“By virtue of the bill’s own language, it would not interfere with existing statutory law in Virginia (which specifically permits abortion) nor challenge U.S. Supreme Court precedent. In fact, what the bill would have done is recognize that parents could recover civil damages if the child were killed by the wrongful act of a third party.
“Unfortunately, rather than questioning Democrats’ characterizations of Republicans as ‘extremists’, many women seem to be falling for the falsehoods and half-truths. We have been hoodwinked by ‘pro-choice’ activists into a commitment to abortion rights that appears to far exceed our concern for the safety and sanitation of the centers where abortions are performed. Even in the wake of the Kermit Gosnell tragedy, we have laid both women’s health and the sensibilities of a humane society on the altar of a political cause.
“The female voters of Virginia should look beyond sound bites for the truth and refuse to be driven beyond rationality by fear or narrow self-interest.
Rita Dunaway, Virginia Christian Alliance Vice President for Public Policy, also writes on her blog Fundamental Things.
