Former Minnesota Senator and top surrogate for former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)’s presidential campaign Norm Coleman (R) told a group of voters in Ohio on Monday that Romney would not overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal, a ruling that Romney’s campaign website calls “a case of blatant judicial activism.” According to Talking Points Memo, Coleman told a group of Jewish Republican voters, “President Bush was president eight years, Roe v. Wade wasn’t reversed. He had two Supreme Court picks, Roe v. Wade wasn’t reversed. It’s not going to be reversed.”
Quinn Bowman of Feature Story News captured the video, in which Coleman was addressing one voter’s concern about the influence of Christian conservatives on the GOP.
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Romney’s public statements on abortion have varied according to who has been asking the question and what stage of the election is underway. In October, Romney told the editorial board of the Des Moines Register that abortion “is not on my agenda.”
Whereas in 2007, during the Republican primaries, the former Massachusetts governor said that he’d be “delighted” to sign legislation overturning Roe v. Wade and making abortion illegal in the United States.
During the 2012 Republican primaries, Romney told a crowd in Kirkwood, Missouri that he plans to “get rid of” Planned Parenthood, the women’s health organization that is a favorite punching-bag of the right.
Recent Romney campaign ads have said that abortion “should be an option” for women in some cases, a stance that would seem to square with positions that the nominee has taken since the presidential debates began, in which he appeared to be moving toward the center on abortion rights.
