UVA’s Lawless on LIVE: New RI Abortion Poll Questions “Completely Insane”
UVA’s Lawless on LIVE: New RI Abortion Poll Questions “Completely Insane”
“As somebody whose entire career is based on survey research, when I see a poll that is completely insane. I feel I have to call it out,” said Lawless of the poll released the group “Citizens for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." “That’s not a thing. No doctor would perform abortion until birth. If you tried to end a pregnancy and the fetus was viable - the fetus is delivered."
“These are [insane] mischaracterizations of what is actually at stake in Rhode Island,” said Lawless, who ran in the Democratic primary in Rhode Island against Congressman Jim Langevin in 2006. “And frankly, nobody favors abortion until birth. That is not what Roe v. Wade allows…that is not what codifying Roe v. Wade would allow. And frankly I’m surprised only 73% of people were opposed to that. I would have thought it would be closer to 100%."
Lawless spoke to the current political climate in Virginia — and the Democratic party’s reaction to Minnesota Rep. Ilmar Omar’s Tweets.
“It’s a little unsettled [in Virginia] — the conversation has moved to behind closed doors,” said Lawless. “There are still two, possibly three elected officials that people are waiting on to resign. There still seems to be an air of uncertainty. We have off-year elections — the entire state legislation is campaigning for re-election in November, [so] the way they speak and talk about racism, sexual assault, plays into the campaigns.”
“[Omar] apologized for what many perceived to be her retweeting and commenting on anti-semitic tropes [and] the Democratic party has demonstrated it is far more willing than the Republican Party to hold its members accountable when they say things that fly in the face of Democratic values,” said Lawless. “We’ve seen that with calls for Ralph Northam to step down over racism, with calls for Justin Fairfax to step down over allegations of sexual assault…we saw it with an immediate request for an apology for anti-semitism..“