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After a career of fighting against popular efforts to protect abortion rights, Malliotakis is now trying to run away from her extreme anti-choice record.
Malliotakis’ deafening silence on abortion comes as Republicans are forging ahead with their radical crusade to ban abortion nationwide – including in New York. But Malliotakis is insisting she hasn’t seen her own colleagues’ extreme plans.
While Malliotakis refuses to talk, her anti-choice record and poorly aged op-ed insisting Republicans wouldn’t attack abortion rights clearly tell us how out of touch she is with New Yorkers.
“Staten Island families deserve better than Nicole Malliotakis, who chooses to cower in hiding as she and her colleagues lie and work tirelessly to rip New Yorkers’ freedoms away,” said DCCC spokesperson Nebeyatt Betre.
Read more:
NY Daily News: As N.Y. GOP Rep. Malliotakis stays mum on abortion, opponent Max Rose goes on the offensive
By Michael McAuliff and Michael Gartland
Sept 19
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Abortion isn’t a topic New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is comfortable talking about in public at the moment.
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As Democrats have called on lawmakers in blue states to enshrine the right to choose into state law, Republicans have done the opposite, passing bans in red states. Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham took that a step further when he introduced a bill that would outlaw abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
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When the Daily News asked her about it at the Capitol in Washington, Malliotakis appeared to respond with her reelection run in mind.
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“I haven’t seen it,” she told The News.
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Reminded that it’s a 15-week ban with exceptions for rape, incest and the mother’s safety, she said, “Send the bill to my office, and we’ll tell you.”
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When asked about his opponent and abortion, Rose, who is pro-choice, suggested none of this should come as a surprise.
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Where Malliotakis has been inconsistent, though, is in her approach to the issue. In recent days, she’s stayed quiet.
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A year later, when Democrats in Albany were pushing to codify Roe into state law out of fear the decision could be overturned, Malliotakis ridiculed the effort, saying that it was “repulsive that they would use this [abortion] as an issue to score political points.”
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In a newspaper editorial published around that time, she put it even more bluntly.
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“For close to a half-century, the Democratic Party has used Roe v. Wade as a political bogeyman to scare women and score political points by threatening that electing Republicans would result in this landmark decision on abortion rights being overturned,” she wrote. “History puts the lie to this scare tactic. Since the decision on Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973, there have been six Republican presidents.”
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Of course, Roe was overturned in large part thanks to the fact that Trump, a Republican, pushed through three Supreme Court justices during his four years in office. It was after their confirmations that the court overturned Roe.
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