Senator Favola and Delegate Herring Blast Allen and GOP's Dangerous Women's Health Agenda
8/21/2012
RICHMOND - Today, Virginia Senator Barbara Favola and Delegate Charniele Herring joined the Democratic Party of Virginia on a media conference call to outline the anti-women's health agenda that George Allen and the Republican party are running on this year and the damage it would do to Virginia women.
On the heels of Rep. Todd Akin's comments about women being unable to become pregnant in cases of "legitimate rape," it was reported yesterday that Allen voted in the U.S. Senate for a judge nominee who had made strikingly similar comments. Also today Bob McDonnell's Republican platform committee ratified its support for an abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest.
"Yesterday the Washington Post reported that, as a member of the U.S. Senate, George Allen voted for a judge nominee named James Leon Holmes after it was revealed that Holmes shared the exact same perspective on rape and conception that Todd Akin expressed on Sunday," said Senator Barbara Favola. "In a letter promoting a ban on abortion even in cases of rape, Holmes said, 'Concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami.'
"George Allen had a chance in that moment to stand up for rape survivors and reject the extreme views that people like Holmes and Akin espouse, but instead he stood up and cast a vote to put those views on the federal bench. That is a dramatic statement of how he views women's health and a disturbing continuation of his lifelong efforts to inject his own agenda into decisions that should be between a woman and her doctor."
"We can't afford to turn the White House over to a ticket that runs on a platform devoted to stripping health care rights from rape survivors and in the case of Paul Ryan even cosigned legislation that rolled back federal funding for abortions for rape survivors unless the woman had experienced a 'forcible rape.' This is a pivotal moment for our country and for women in particular and that's why we are working so hard to get the word out that the Romney-Ryan-Allen ticket would roll back health care rights and present a real threat to our freedom to make our own decisions about our own bodies."
