The abortion views of Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), the Democrat nominee for Ohio’s open U.S. Senate race, have devolved alongside his party in the past decade, switching from being a pro-life advocate to a radical proponent of abortion-on-demand.
The ten-term congressman and failed presidential hopeful spent a good chunk of his career in Congress advocating for the unborn, voting on bills that would protect children in the womb.
When he first ran for Congress in 2002, Ryan’s campaign highlighted his anti-abortion bona fides, and in 2009, he penned an op-ed acknowledging that he is “a pro-life member of Congress.”
In Congress, Ryan supported pro-life legislation like the 2003 Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act — which blocked abortions in military medical facilities that are federally funded — and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which was, as Ryan plainly stated: “against partial-birth abortion, and against human cloning.”
Ryan even joined a “pro-choice colleague,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), to introduce Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion, and Supporting Parents Act, with the goal of offering “common-ground policy solutions to reduce abortions by addressing the root causes.”
The congressman explained his pro-life position to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who was also Speaker at the time, to firmly say that any healthcare reform “should prohibit public funds from paying for abortions.”
In 2015, Ryan detailed his flip-flop on the abortion issue in an op-ed titled “Why I changed my thinking on abortion,” where he explained that after nearly 15 years in office, he would now be pro-abortion after speaking to women and having a child of his own.
“I would be abandoning my own conscience and judgment if I held a position that I no longer believed appropriate,” he wrote. “I have come to believe that we must trust women and families — not politicians — to make the best decision for their lives.”
The now-pro-abortion Ryan, however, only more recently embraced the more radical side of his party’s advocacy for killing unborn Americans.
The congressman’s new stance is to support late-term abortion — up until the moment of birth — which is a key tenet of the “Women’s Health Protection Act,” an extreme federal takeover of abortion regulation of which Ryan is an original cosponsor. He proudly voted for the measure this past year, calling the deaths of these children “reproductive health.”
As summarized by the Catholic News Agency:
The WHPA would prohibit abortion restrictions or bans “that are more burdensome than those restrictions imposed on medically comparable procedures, do not significantly advance reproductive health or the safety of abortion services, and make abortion services more difficult to access.”
The act’s text lists a series of specific restrictions it would do away with, on everything from limitations on telemedicine to restrictions around viability, which the act defines as the point when a fetus can survive outside the womb — determined by “the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider.”
The Senate hopeful also supports having the taxpayers foot the bill for abortions.
Ryan endorsed the “Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Act,” which would reverse the Hyde Amendment and allow anyone who receives health care or insurance from the federal government — such as Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and Veterans Administration — to have coverage for abortions.
Ryan wanted to push his extremist views on abortion further following the release of a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would overturn the infamous pro-abortion case Roe v. Wade. His statement claimed that the decision by the Supreme Court, if true, is “absolutely wrong.”
The statement also indicated that the Democrat-controlled Senate should “end the filibuster” in order to force through the Women’s Health Protection Act which would “codify Roe and protect abortion rights from attacks at the state and local level”:
Overturning Roe v. Wade would be absolutely wrong, not to mention catastrophic for Ohio, where Republicans have passed one extreme and dangerous proposal after another to ban abortion- without exceptions even for rape. incest, or medical emergencies–before most people even know they’re pregnant. We cannot sit back and allow the Supreme Court to gut Ohioans’ most fundamental rights. Control of the Senate has never been more important: it’s time to end the filibuster, pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, and fight like hell to make sure all Ohio families are free to make these critical decisions without interference from politicians in Columbus or Washington.
On Thursday, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio J.D. Vance hammered Ryan for saying women should be able to abort an unborn child at any point in the pregnancy.
“Here’s Kamala Harris stooge Tim Ryan defending abortion through 40 weeks,” Vance said in response to a clip of the congressman speaking to Bret Baier on Fox News on Wednesday. “This is a barbaric position anywhere in the world (even European nations typically don’t allow abortion after 12 weeks). But it’s an especially radical position in Ohio.”
Here’s Kamala Harris stooge Tim Ryan defending abortion through 40 weeks. This is a barbaric position anywhere in the world (even European nations typically don’t allow abortion after 12 weeks). But it’s an especially radical position in Ohio. https://t.co/ObtePxlUHH
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) May 5, 2022
Breccan F. Thies is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @BreccanFThies.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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