Tudor Dixon stated that a child victim of incest and rape was the “perfect example” of someone who would not have access to an abortion within her wrong-for-Michigan agenda, then doubled down on the callous statement by saying “I’m not hiding from it,” then – only after she faced considerable scrutiny – she tried to paper over her callous comments by claiming they were taken out of context. But Dixon undermined her own attempts to erase her remarks this weekend with yet another statement underlining how her anti-abortion extremism extends to child victims of rape.
During an appearance on Roop Raj’s ‘Let it Rip,’ the DeVos sellout explained that her opposition to exceptions for rape and incest stems from the belief that there’s “healing through that baby.” This latest callous statement, along with her well-documented staunch refusal to protect reproductive freedom for millions of Michigan women and families, is why Dixon is backed by out-of-state special interests like Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-choice group with a mission to explicitly “end abortion.”
See excerpts below from Michigan Advance’s coverage of Dixon as she continues to support a near total ban from 1931 that criminalizes abortion, makes felons out of reproductive health care providers and provides no exceptions for rape or incest. Dixon’s comments were also covered by Deadline Detroit, Detroit Metro Times, Yahoo News, Business Insider, Newsweek, HuffPost, among others.
Michigan Advance: Dixon opposes abortion for rape victims because there’s ‘healing through the baby’
By Jon King
Despite complaining that Democratic attack ad had taken her comments on abortion out of context, Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon seemed to confirm the ad’s point in a recent TV interview.
The ad by Put Michigan First, a group allied with the Democratic Governors Association, criticized Dixon’s stance on abortion as extreme, noting her support for a total ban on the procedure except in cases where the life of the mother was at stake.
In making that case, the ad featured a clip from a July interview with Detroit podcaster Charlie LeDuff in which he asked Dixon if a 14-year-old raped by her uncle should be forced to have the baby.
“Perfect example,” replied Dixon.
She later slammed the ad as distorting her position, saying it was taken out of context as part of her argument that eliminating parental consent abortion laws would make it harder to catch abusers.
However, when asked by FOX-2’s Roop Raj in an interview Friday about that comment, offering her a chance to clarify whether a 14-year-old rape victim should be allowed to get an abortion, Dixon again said she would oppose that.
“I’ve talked to those people who were the child of a rape victim and the bond that those two people made,” Dixon said. “And the fact that out of that tragedy, there was healing through that baby. It’s something that we don’t think about because we assume that that story is someone who was taken from the front yard then returned. That’s generally not the story there. And those voices, the babies of rape victims that have come forward, are very powerful when you hear their story and what the truth is behind that. It’s very hard to not stand up for those people.”
The interview went viral on social media and has been reported on by national media.
“A 14 year old is a CHILD. A CHILD should not be forced to carry A CHILD from RAPE. Why do children’s lives – their future, hopes, dreams, aspirations – not matter!?” state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak) wrote on Twitter. […]
However, Dixon’s assertion that ectopic pregnancies, in which a fertilized egg grows outside of the uterus, cannot survive and is potentially fatal to the mother, would be covered by the 1931 law is up for debate.
Dr. Lisa Harris, an obstetrician-gynecologist and associate director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at University of Michigan, is one of the expert medical witnesses who testified at the injunction hearing and was deemed to be “extremely credible” by the judge.
Harris told MLive in July that the law is so broadly written that it is not clear to doctors what procedures would be considered legal.
“They may not wish to treat an ectopic pregnancy if there is evidence of fetal cardiac activity,” said Dr. Harris. “Doctors’ judgment calls now have criminal penalties associated with them. And if someone thinks that a woman’s life was not quite in jeopardy enough, when someone ended that pregnancy, they could face criminal charges.”
