Full-Term Abortion Backer Doug Jones Now Aims to Fool Alabama Voters on Anti-Life Stance

BIRMINGHAM, AL - NOVEMBER 18: Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Doug Jones poses for a
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Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones holds extreme views on abortion that are not in tune with the pro-life state of Alabama, but he’s apparently working to soften them.

In a recent interview with AL.com, Jones walked back his prior comments on abortion in which he refused any restrictions on abortion up until the baby’s day of birth. Now, however, Jones says he wants to “be clear” about his stance on abortion.

Jones told AL.com he was the victim of an “attack” since his MSNBC interview in which he said he becomes a “right-to-lifer” only after a baby is born.

“Those comments, everybody wants to attack you so they are going to make out on those comments what they want to their political advantage,” Jones said, adding:

To be clear, I fully support a woman’s freedom to choose to what happens to her own body. That is an intensely, intensely personal decision that only she, in consultation with her god, her doctor, her partner or family, that’s her choice.

Having said that, the law for decades has been that late-term procedures are generally restricted except in the case of medical necessity. That’s what I support. I don’t see any changes in that. It is a personal decision.

But, that’s not what Jones told MSNBC’s MTP Daily host Chuck Todd in September:

I want to make sure that as we go forward, people have access to contraception, they have access to the abortion that they might need, if that’s what they choose to do. I think that that’s going to be an issue that we can work with and talk to people about from both sides of the aisle.

When Todd asked him if he would not support legislation that banned late-term abortions, Jones added:

I’m not in favor of anything that is going to infringe on a woman’s right and her freedom to choose. That’s just the position that I’ve had for many years. It’s a position I continue to have.

But when those people — I want to make sure that people understand that once a baby is born, I’m going to be there for that child. That’s where I become a right to lifer.

Besides taking up the Democrats’ false “war on women” narrative that Republicans want to stop “access to contraception,” Jones’s position on abortion all along has been akin to that of failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s view that unborn babies have no constitutional rights.

Joe Godfrey, Executive Director of Alabama Citizens Action Program (ALCAP), says Jones is softening his language on abortion because he knows Alabama is a pro-life state. He tells Breitbart News:

My guess is that he is backing away from his previous comments because he knows how repugnant late term abortions are to most people in Alabama. He knows that to get conservative voters who are unsure about Roy Moore to vote for him he had better soften his stance on that issue. However, he still believes in aborting innocent babies in the womb, whether late term or not. He seems worried about the rights of mothers, but completely ignores the rights of the children who have been conceived. We must ask ourselves, “Does he really still believe in his heart that late term abortions should be legal, but is just changing his tune for political reasons?”

Godfrey reflects on the difficulties Alabama conservatives are facing in this race. “Conservatives need to understand that, while we are unsure about Roy Moore’s past, we are very sure that Doug Jones does not share our Alabama values,” he says.

Planned Parenthood – which champions no restrictions whatsoever on abortion throughout pregnancy – is clearly supporting Jones, who says on his campaign website that he “stands with Planned Parenthood.”

Jones faces Republican candidate Judge Roy Moore in a special election on December 12 to fill the Senate seat previously held by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Evangelist Dr. Alveda King – the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – who heads up Civil Rights for the Unborn at Priests for Life, tells Breitbart News the Alabama Senate race is important for those who value life from conception.

“Every election counts in the race for life,” King says. “Judge Roy Moore stands for the sanctity of human life from the womb to the tomb. Doug Jones does not. We must always vote our values. Life is a civil right.”

Moore’s campaign website clearly states his pro-life position and his specific call for defunding Planned Parenthood:

I oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, civil unions, and all other threats to the traditional family order.

Federal funding for Planned Parenthood or any form of abortion should be stopped.

“Doug Jones, like Hillary Clinton, represents well the extreme position of the Democrat Party platform on abortion,” Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, also tells Breitbart News. “There’s not a baby in the womb they are willing to protect — or if there is, they aren’t willing to say so. The first thing we should require of public servants is that they can tell the difference between serving the public and killing the public.”

“Doug Jones clearly has no problem with the fact that the U.S. is only one of seven nations – alongside North Korea and China – to allow elective abortion-on-demand after five months,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement in September.

“His extremism puts him dramatically out of step with Alabama voters,” she added. “Alabama is one of twenty states to take a stand against the brutality of late-term abortions having approved a state limit in 2011. Polls consistently show that a large majority of Americans – women in higher numbers than men – support bringing our national laws into line with basic human decency.”

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