Republicans felt pretty good about themselves earlier this summer after the right-leaning, Trump-stacked Supreme Court went and overturned Roe v. Wade, which kept abortion safe and legal in the U.S. for almost half a century. Then came a cold splash of water to their faces: Turns out banning abortion — especially all abortion, even in cases of rape and incest — is incredibly unpopular with voters. As such, even the most staunchly anti-abortion candidates have started watering down their rhetoric. But of course, Dr. Oz, who’s been running one of the more accident-prone political campaigns in a long time, couldn’t even get that one right.
As per The Daily Beast, the former TV quack — who’s been saying that, as a licensed physician, he would never ban all abortions — was caught on a hot mic back in May, before he clinched the Republican ticket for a vacating Senate seat, contradicting himself.
“I do believe life starts at conception, and I’ve said that multiple times,” he told the crowd at a rally that hadn’t previously been made public. “If life starts at conception,” he said, “why do you care what age the heart starts beating at? It’s, you know, it’s still murder, if you were to terminate a child whether their heart’s beating or not.”
Was Oz simply throwing red meat to a ravenous conservative crowd? In a 2019 interview, he sounded pretty pro-choice, saying he was “really worried” about the health of pregnant women should Roe ever be overturned. But then, he wasn’t running for a Republican Senate seat in a Trump-tainted world, as he is now.
Oz’s hard-line abortion comments caught the eye of many, including one person in particular: John Fetterman, his Democratic opponent, who’s been clobbering Oz in the polls and relentlessly, creatively trolling him.
Dr. Oz was caught on a hot mic saying he’d ban abortion even in the cases of rape or incest.
I’ve always been consistent: I’ll fight as hard as I can to protect women’s reproductive freedom + codify abortion rights into federal law.
The choice in this election is clear.
— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) August 31, 2022
“Dr. Oz was caught on a hot mic saying he’d ban abortion even in the cases of rape or incest,” Fetterman tweeted. “I’ve always been consistent: I’ll fight as hard as I can to protect women’s reproductive freedom + codify abortion rights into federal law. The choice in this election is clear.”
It’s yet another blow to Oz’s Clouseau-esque campaign in this week alone. On Tuesday, he awkwardly addressed how his staffers keep making light of the stroke Fetterman suffered in May. That didn’t go well either.
(Via The Daily Beast)