Super Tuesday recap: Mitt rolls on

Last night was hardly the decisive Super Tuesday victory of years past, but it seems this morning, after last night’s Ohio haze, that Mitt Romney has pulled ahead in the Republican primary.

Here’s how it broke down last night: Mitt Romney won Alaska, Idaho, Massachusetts, Ohio (by a very small margin, it seems), Vermont, Virgina and Wyoming. Rick Santorum won North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee. And Newt Gingrich, making a point of not bowing out, won Georgia.

So what does this mean, other than the fact that this interminable GOP primary season rolls on? By most accounts, it’s becoming increasingly evident that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee, though likely not formally and finally for some time yet. The fight for delegates continues.

And so, while this continues on and on, let’s take a moment to remember that the two front-runners for the GOP primary are unquestionably anti-women.

Mitt Romney’s position on abortion and other women’s health issues switched from pro-choice to anti-choice during while he was MA governor from 2003 to 2007. His record on choice-related issues is pretty complicated: he vetoed a measure that would have allowed pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception without a prescription to rape victims, but he signed into law an expansion of family planning services for low-income women and families in Massachusetts. Romney was also one of the few GOP candidates who refused to sign the Susan B. Anthony List’s pro-life pledge, because his team said it could have some “potentially unforeseen consequences.” All that said, he believes abortion should only be legal in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother, and claimed that if he were president he would support the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

Rick Santorum, former PA Senator, wants abortion banned in all circumstances, even rape and incest. He’s also opposed to family planning programs and teaching students about any kind of contraception in schools. As senator, he voted against funding pregnancy prevention programs for teens and voted for the “family cap” and the “illegitimacy cap,” which would have financially penalized low-income women for having children and penalized states for children born out of wedlock. One of Santorum’s priorities as president will be to defund Planned Parenthood, which he believes to have “poisonous roots.”

Newt Gingrich cast 74 votes on reproductive rights, women’s health and family planning issues during his 19 years in Congress, and 72 of those were anti-choice. He voted time and again to give legal “personhood” status to an embryo, supported the Federal Abortion Ban, to deny military women the right to have abortions at military hospitals, and listed “biological problems” as his reason for opposing women’s right to join the military. He wants to defund Planned Parenthood and eliminate the entire Title X program as president.

There it is, y’all. Your GOP cast.

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