Abortion is the giant single overarching issue that Knight of Malta Sam Alito and cohorts made it this election cycle. Republican candidates cannot hide from it, try as they might.
Women are not to be forced to be child-bearing slaves against their will, no matter what, under the vulnerable Minnesota Supreme Court's Doe v. Gomez judicial holding. There is in Minnesota a general right to privacy reaching to include womens' abortion rights being Constitutional rights under Minnesota's Constitution. Open access to morning after pills or early-term pharmaceutical arbortificants included. No pharmacist should be allowed to stand in the way of dispensing lawful medicine over his/her own personal mythologies. If unwilling for that, get out of pharmacy into other work. And if politics ends things other than that, keep up the fight.
With abortion rights shaping up to be a central issue in the 2022
election, Democratic candidates continue to press their Republican
opponents on the issue, including in the race for Minnesota attorney
general.
Republican attorney general candidate Jim Schultz has expressed views
against abortion in the past and has served on an anti-abortion
nonprofit, but he insists the race is about combating rising crime.
Democratic incumbent Keith Ellison, meanwhile, says his GOP challenger
misunderstands the role the attorney general’s office should play in
prosecuting crime, and should stand up for abortion rights, which are
guaranteed under the state constitution but no longer protected
federally following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Minnesota
Attorney General Keith Ellison (right) is being challenged by
Republican Jim Schultz. (Schultz photo by Dana Ferguson of Forum News
Service; Ellison photo by Jean Pieri of the Pioneer Press)
“This is absolutely an issue in this campaign, and I want to be clear
that my opponent is not committed to these rights,” Ellison told
Capitol reporters Friday, later adding: “Nobody can escape, being
accountable to the public as to what they will do to stand up for a
woman’s right to choose.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James and Planned Parenthood North
Central States president and CEO Sarah Stoesz also spoke in support of
Ellison.
“Abortion rights are very, very, very much on the ballot in this
election,” said Stoesz. “And Minnesotans are rightly curious as to where
candidates stand.”
The worse offender on trying unsuccessfully to duck the issue is Auditor candidate Ryan Wilson, who has published in the Diocese of Duluth's Northern Lights website recently, characterized there as "Ryan Wilson - a law clerk at the Minnesota Catholic Conference." He, so far, has been opaque on the issue. Wilson assertively wants to audit public schools if elected; whereas schools of his faith, Catholic schools, presenting a World of difference as private entities under his watch, if elected, would escape audit responsibility. That much is of record. The man needs to better tell the public who he really fully is. On all issues which matter. Where he stands on privacy and specifically, the unfettered Constitutional right to abortion access in Minnesota. As well as rejection of vouchers to private schools, so far, in our State.
Back to PiPress reporting on the AG race, and the abortion issue there:
Schultz, who became the GOP nominee after defeating challenger Doug
Wardlow in the August primary, supports some restrictions on abortion,
including a 20-week ban, but insists the central issue in the campaign
for attorney general is crime. He has said he would not use the office
to pursue further restrictions on abortion. Ahead of the Aug. 9 primary,
Wardlow [ref. concluding: " 'Doug Wardlow is a desperate candidate who consistently loses and lies,'
Schultz’s campaign says. 'Jim’s pro-life record speaks for itself.' ”] attempted to paint Schultz as weak on abortion, but ultimately
the strategy failed to win over the majority of GOP voters.
Now confronted with a challenge from the other side of the abortion
debate, Schultz continues to downplay the issue’s importance in the
race. He argues the attorney general’s office ultimately has very little
influence over abortion policy in the state of Minnesota and said the
question is fundamentally for the Legislature to decide.
Compare, Schultz saying he'd have appealed the Gilligan abortion decision, a step which would have shown a will toward great influence on the issue; this link. Same item, Ellison declined incurring further cost on what he viewed as a futile appeal. Schultz now appears to backpeddle from that position.
Back to the PiPress report:
Asked what he thought of Ellison’s June pledge to protect
out-of-state abortion seekers from prosecution or liability in their
home states, Schultz said his opponent was merely invoking a
hypothetical situation in an attempt to make the race about abortion.
Lame! Very, very lame.
And this anti-hypothetical comment from the candidate who is insisting adding an entire host of criminal specialist lawyers to the AG payroll will quell violent crime - that claim being a total hypothetical since there's nobody to prosecute on an unsolved crime. A minor expansion of criminal law expertise in the AG office, as Ellison contends necessary, would leave additional funding to be allocated to investigating and solving crime by bolstering such functions, so that prosecutor numbers balance their need in processing such cases as law enforcement solves. Balance is good. Excess in a wrong direction is bad. Now. back to basics -
ABORTION IS NOT MERELY AN ISSUE. IT IS THE ISSUE, ALL ELSE BEING SUBORDINATE. Republican Federalist Society Supreme Court actors put it there.
And yes, opinions can differ, but attempted ducking an issue, one that major, is fantasy. You cannot get away with it. Trying to minimize the issue in any sense rings untrue.
Ellison is the trustworthy ballot choice for protection of a general Minnesota Constitutional right of privacy as the bedrock upon which ancillary rights stand; rights to abortion, contraception use, gender identification choice, and open marriage rights - full legal protections between a pair of consenting, willing adults wanting to legally marry and be recognized as being married. Live and let live.
