The battle for the Republican presidential nomination has produced an unexpectedly intense burst of attacks on women’s reproductive rights, not only on the right to abortion, but also by implication on some of the most commonly used methods of contraception.
The shift to an aggressively conservative posture stands in direct contrast to the party’s previous five presidential nominees, all of whom sought during their campaigns to play down social issues. …
The conflicts over reproductive rights within both the Republican Party and within the social conservative movement are inevitable. They result from the fact that the ideological purity — the moral absolutism — of the anti-abortion movement conflicts with the far more complex views and the pragmatism of the electorate, including many conservative Republicans. CONT.
Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times