Paul Ryan's anti-abortion rights record a target for Obama camp

Steve Pope/Getty Images

(CBS News) To cap off his three-day trip to the key state of Iowa, President Obama on Wednesday will be joined by First Lady Michelle Obama on the campaign trail for the first time in over 3 months, as he continues his effort to appeal to swing-state women voters. In his effort, Mr. Obama has regularly stressed his support for issues like reproductive rights -- an issue that may come more sharply into focus now that Rep. Paul Ryan has joined Mitt Romney on the GOP ticket.

Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House Budget Committee, is primarily known for his very conservative budget plan, but his views on social issues like abortion are just as heartening for conservatives as his economic policies.

"I'm as pro-life as a person gets," Ryan, a Roman Catholic, told the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard in 2010. As the vice presidential candidate, Ryan's positions on issues like abortion rights will, of course, take a backseat to Romney's. The positions of the Romney administration would be Mitt Romney's positions. Still, Ryan's strong views on this issue serve as a rallying point for conservatives and as a tool for the Obama campaign to mobilize abortion rights supporters.

Ryan's anti-abortion rights credentials -- unlike Romney's -- are indeed impeccable. The National Right to Life Committee, a nationwide federation opposed to abortion rights, has given Ryan a 100 percent "pro-life" voting record -- in other words, for every vote he's taken on abortion-related issues since joining the House of Representatives in 1999, Ryan has voted on the anti-abortion side.

His record includes voting to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood in 2011, and in 2006, voting against allowing servicewomen overseas to obtain an abortion in U.S. military medical facilities, except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest. Additionally in 2006, Ryan voted for a bill requiring women obtaining abortions to hear about the pain their unborn child may experience.

Ryan was one of several dozen Republicans to co-sponsor a particularly controversial bill last year that never made it to the House floor called the Sanctity of Human Life Act. The measure stated that the "life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent... at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood."

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[x_crosscheck_x]

Wow, Condon is a raging libtard.

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Republicans are experts at peddling hate, lies and propaganda and the sooner voters wake up to this the better off our great nation will be. Think of all 6the whoppers of lies by politicians and you'll fine the biggest and most were by republicans from Nixon, Reagan, G.W and Romney. In fact Romney's whole campaign is predicated on lies and propaganda.

[Xlandria]

No matter what the topic of discussion on any of these boards, the obamaittes are united in their apparent belief that Barry can do no wrong. Are you idiots or just willingly blind? This country is in a pit of debt, the government is taking over everything it doesn't destroy. All these 'Green Energy Projects' have gone bankrupt, the money laundered and spread among Obama & the DNC. All the major players in these companies read like a friends & family plan, all connected one way or another to Solyndra, the DNC and benefiting money-wise. Look at what's happening over at Obamacare, there is a 14 member panel that will have control over your healthcare, (not you & your doctor, just them), they have the power to change or make law, and bypass the House & Congress, they don't even need the president's signature. BTW Barry has also come a couple of steps closer to being able to bypass them as well. So, altogether now, say DICTATOR. America will cease to exist as we know it and I can foresee a Civil War in the very near future. All those who want to be socialist, I suggest you pack up and leave this country. We are keeping this country the way it is. GET OUT
BTW, this subject you all are discussing, well Obama & pals totally agree and support forced abortions & sterilization.

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Who is Paul Ryan?

A catholic who rejects the teachings of Jesus Christ for the philosophy of atheist Ayn Rand. Even the council of catholic bishops and the organizations of catholic nuns are against Ryan and the Ryan budget voted out of the house of representatives by republicans.

Nice pick Mitt

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Paul Ryan's use of his mother to try and legitimize the lies, propaganda and scam he and Romney are proposing on medicare show that republicans have no sense of shame or honor and will stoop to anything to gain power.

This bares for all to see that republicans care only about controlling government to use for the benefit of the super rich contributors along with corporations, big oil and big pharma.

Republicans have shown time and time again that they don't give a damn about ordinary Americans. However they do lie like the devil to ordinary Americans to scam them into voting them into office.

[Mehrisha]

You people sound so embarrassing! Why should a woman carry a child from a man who raped her?! You think that abortion is a murder but who thinks about that poor woman?! Why does she have to give birth for this child and live the rest of her life remembering about that son of a ***** who has raped her?! No one knows what kind of illnesses could rapist give to woman and also to child! And have you ever thought about genetic problems?! That little baby will grow up and become alcoholic, drug user, it could have mental illnesses, HIV and thousands of other diseases!
What about incest?! How come could a person agree and support that ''incest is good, go for it, never mind!''?! You think about the baby but what if its mother is just 12 years old and has been raped by her own father?! Don't you think this baby won't be a happiness for her but just a burden!!! It's 21st century and we can't think just about religious facts but we have to look at such serious situations clearly! WOMAN is the only one who can decide whether to have the child or not. We all have our own right to choose! And neither government nor church or society can decide for a woman to have or not to have the child!

[JV1970]

Mehrisha I hope and pray that women someday lose that "right" to choose that you spoke of! I pray for the day that Roe v Wade is revolked. It should never have been passed in the first place!

[kaylaaaafish]

she's going to remember what the son of a ***** has done to her whether or not she gets pregnant from it, and whether or not she delivers the baby or gets an abortion. why should the child suffer and/or not even have a chance at life just because of it's sperm donor's actions?

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Ryan believes if your wife, daughter, mother, sister, niece etc is raped they must give birth to the rapist baby, no abortions, no exceptions. Really enlightened thinking don't ya think?

[JV1970]

Yes, I do! It IS enlightened thinking because the poor little baby hasn't done anything to be killed for! A baby can't rape anyone!

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

JV,

I don't know your gender but if you are a woman should you be forced to give birth to the baby of a gang rape? If you are a man would you want you wife, daughter, mother, sister or niece to be forced to give birth to the baby of a gang rape?

[Dancing-in-the-Streets]

by EmpireGeorge______-- August 16, 2012 12:25 PM EDT
Ryan isn't running for President, so nice try......
---------------------
George in the event the President dies - Ryan (or Palin) would BE President! YES - vice presidents ARE also running for President!

[Dancing-in-the-Streets]

ALSO - when a Presidential candiate chooses a vice president that gives us insight into his own beliefs. If Romney thinks so much of Ryan that he'd hand him the reins to the country, then we can assume his policies wouldn't be much different!

[JV1970]

Even children born as the result of a rape or incest are human beings and they need to be loved and not aborted!

[Dancing-in-the-Streets]

Would you have the woman who was raped look into the eyes of her rapist each day while she's raising the child? Women are human, they aren't saints, and it would take a saint NOT to feel some animosity to the child of the person who violated her!

[JV1970]

No, not a saint! Just a mother with the heart and soul of a mother!

[Dancing-in-the-Streets]

http://jezebel.com/5934975/paul-ryan-sponsored-a-bill-that-would-allow-rapists-to-stop-their-victims-from-aborting

[EmpireGeorge______--]

Ryan isn't running for President, so nice try......just like you attempted to pretend Sarah was the Presidential candidate, instead of McCain......so if you want to be honest, show Romney's support of such an issue, then you would have something.....but bringing up something about Ryan, is like caring what Palin did in Wasilla, irrelevant, Ryan isn't the President, Romney will be.

[Lindag20]

Rapists ALREADY have too many rights. A friend of my daughter was raped at age 13 by a neighbor who had lured her to his house on the promise of a babysitting job (he was married with 2 kids). Due to his threats she was a afraid to tell her parents what had happened. By the time her mother found out she was pregnant it was too late to do anything about it. She had his child when barely 14 and wanted to give her up for adoption, but the rapist refused to sign the paperwork and said if she didn't want the child, HE did. So she kept her daughter and with the support of her family and friends graduated with her class from high school. My daughter tutored her in math so she could pass Geometry and Alegbra.