Leaked Audio: GOP Candidate Says
She Doubts Rape Victims Get Pregnant
Dan Ladden-Hall
Mon, June 27, 2022
Nathan Howard/Getty
A female Republican congressional candidate claimed on the campaign trail in Virginia last month that rape victims are less likely to become pregnant because “it’s not something that’s happening organically.”
Yesli Vega made the eyebrow-raising comments while being asked for her thoughts on what then promised to be a Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the federal right to abortion.
An audio recording of the remarks, which took place at an event in Stafford County, was published by Axios on Monday. Vega—who is Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s rival for Congress in the Virginia’s liberal-leaning 7th District—said she was drawing on her experience as a Prince William County supervisor and a sheriff’s deputy after affirming her belief for state-level restrictions on abortion.
“The left will say, ‘Well what about in cases of rape or incest?’” Vega can be heard telling an unidentified interlocutor in the clip. “I’m a law-enforcement officer. I became a police officer in 2011. I’ve worked one case where as a result of a rape, the young woman became pregnant.”
Arkansas Guv Brushes Off Rape and Incest Exceptions to Abortion Ban
Vega was also asked at the event if she had heard that it’s “harder for a woman to get pregnant if she’s been raped.”
“Well, maybe because there’s so much going on in the body,” Vega answered. “I don’t know. I haven’t, you know, seen any studies. But if I’m processing what you’re saying, it wouldn’t surprise me. Because it’s not something that’s happening organically. You’re forcing it. The individual, the male, is doing it as quickly—it’s not like, you know—and so I can see why there is truth to that. It’s unfortunate.”
When Axios asked Vega to comment on the remarks, she wrote in a statement: “I’m a mother of two, I’m fully aware of how women get pregnant.” Her campaign didn’t deny the authenticity of the audio.
Vega played up her law-enforcement credentials during her GOP primary race, which she won last week. She has been outspoken in her opposition to Roe and received endorsement from Republican heavyweights, including Sen. Ted Cruz and Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who concurred with the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday.
Vega’s rape comments echo the infamous comments made by former Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, whose 2012 Senate race imploded when he asserted that victims of what he termed “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant. “The female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Akin, who died last year, said in an interview during the race.
According to the CDC, almost three million women in the U.S. have experienced rape-related pregnancy during their lifetime. Cases of abortion from rape are rare, however, accounting for around 1 percent of all abortions in America, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights research group.
AOC recalls thanking God she had the choice to get an abortion when she took a pregnancy test after being raped
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she felt grateful she could've had an abortion after being raped.
The lawmaker told the story of her sexual assault Friday at a protest Friday in New York City.
"Thank God I have, at least, a choice," she recalled thinking during a pregnancy test.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday shared a personal sexual-assault story during an abortion-rights rally, saying she felt grateful she had the freedom to obtain an abortion if she needed one in that moment.
"I myself, when I was about 22 or 23 years old, was raped while I was living here in New York City," she told a crowd in New York's City Union Square Park. "I was completely alone. I felt completely alone. In fact, I felt so alone that I had to take a pregnancy test in a public bathroom in midtown Manhattan."
"When I sat there waiting for what the result would be, all I could think was thank God I have, at least, a choice," she continued. "Thank God I could, at least, have the freedom to choose my destiny."
She added: "I didn't know then, as I was waiting, that it would come up negative."
"But it doesn't matter," she said. "It doesn't matter and that this is for all of us. This is not a women's rights issue. This is an issue for all of us."
Ocasio-Cortez gave the remarks the same day the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion a constitutional right in the US.
While abortion opponents rejoiced, the decision has sparked protests nationwide, and a slew of prominent people including the musician Jack White as well as lawmakers such as Ocasio-Cortez have blasted the decision. The Justice Department condemned it, saying on Friday that it's a "devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States."
Concern by abortion-rights advocates that the Supreme Court might strike down Roe v. Wade were heightened in May when Politico published a leaked draft majority opinion in which Justice Samuel Alito called the Roe decision "egregiously wrong from the start."
Now, by overturning Roe, the Supreme Court has put the question of the legality of abortion in the hands of state legislatures and has essentially made it illegal in at least 22 states to obtain an abortion. There are expected to be added restrictions in several others.
"We must start right now to be relentless to restore and guarantee all of our rights here in the United States of America," Ocasio-Cortez urged the crowd during her Friday speech.
No comments:
Post a Comment