ICYMI - Bashaw Can’t Hide From His Trump Supporting, Abortion-Banning Record

MOORESTOWN N.J. – As November Election efforts get underway in earnest, voters are returning from the holiday weekend and waking up to the realities of what a ‘Curtis Bashaw for Senate’ vote really means. Despite his attempts to distort the truth, the fact is that Bashaw is running for Senate to support Donald Trump and the Republican extremist agenda which would include banning reproductive freedoms across the country, leaving millions of women’s lives in peril.

Here is how voters in New Jersey read about it:

Star-Ledger: Don’t believe them: Kean and Bashaw are pro-choice impostors | Editorial

You cannot call yourself pro-choice – as we’ve heard from Senate candidate Curtis Bashaw and Rep. Tom Kean -- yet support the state-imposed restrictions that directly resulted from Dobbs, because it is a glaring moral contradiction that any voter can recognize as bait-and-switch hypocrisy.

“At minimum, knowing that the fallout from Dobbs was that dozens of states would make it difficult if not impossible for a person to get an abortion -- which would have an incredibly negative impact on thousands of women -- casts doubt on a person’s true commitment to choice and abortion access,” says Prof. Kimberly Mutcherson, the co-Dean of Rutgers Law School.

As [Bashaw] explained recently on NJ Spotlight News, “The federal government was the worst place to try to adjudicate (abortion), and I’m glad it was returned to the states.”...It does not bother him that 21 of those states ban abortion rights because of the Dobbs ruling – with 10 having no exception for rape, six having no exception for a mother’s health, and 13 having no exception for fatal fetal anomalies.

“I believe Bashaw when he says he considers himself to be pro-choice. But he won’t be able to be an effective advocate for choice -- his party won’t let him espouse as much in his campaign, much less in the Senate. So if [reproductive healthcare] is an issue that matters to you as a voter, you need to think carefully about Bashaw’s ability to effectively advocate for moving the nation past a deeply unpopular decision that he professes to support.”

Bergen Record: Which NJ Senate candidate is the real agent of change? Curtis Bashaw? Andy Kim?: Stile

*But Bashaw has been tethered to the Trump campaign, endorsing the ex-president in the primary but now assuring voters that he is not in lockstep with Trump on many policies…While proclaiming he is pro-choice, Bashaw also supports the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Supreme Court decision, which eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, established 51 years ago in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. *

“It actually just boggles my mind sometimes,” Kim, who represents the 3rd Congressional District, said of his opponent in an interview in June with NJ Spotlight News. “Why does he actually want to run for this Senate seat? [He’s] trying to twist himself in knots in so many different ways. Look, Curtis Bashaw voted for Trump on June 4 and he’s going to vote for him again in November.”

Critics say his support of Dobbs undercuts his claim to a pro-choice posture — if you believe a woman has a right to her own reproductive choices, then that right should be extended to women regardless of where they live. Dobbs doesn’t allow that.