Republican presidential contenders compete for title of Biggest Abortion Hater to court anti-choice org’s support

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On Wednesday night, the GOP’s best and, um, brightest (?) got together for a gala hosted by the deceptively-named Susan B. Anthony List. Hoping to get the prominent anti-choice group’s endorsement in the 2016 presidential primaries, the Republican contenders all shamelessly pandered to the anti-choice fringe.

ThinkProgress has pulled together some of the greatest hits from the night–from our fav Mike Huckabee comparing abortion to killing the elderly to Sen. Mike Lee, a Tea Partier from Utah saying pro-choicers support a “culture of death” and engage in “savagery.” Sen. Ted Cruz, for his part, thinks we’re Satan-worshippers. See? You can tell just how much they care about “the babies” by how little they seem to care about the fact that one third of American women will have an abortion in their lifetimes and only 20 percent of the population believes it should be outlawed. 

All the contenders seemed committed to ignoring the advice of more moderate–or just more pragmatic–members of the party who think fixating on abortion and birth control all the time is a losing strategy. Since I agree it’s a losing strategy–Americans, particularly young people, being fairly attached to their reproductive rights at this point–here’s hoping the SBA List throws their support and considerable financial heft behind the most outspoken, rabid anti-choicer out there.

With this bunch, it might be a tough choice, but they really can’t go wrong.

Maya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.