The virulently anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List has endorsed Yesli Vega in the Virginia Seventh District congressional race.
How anti-abortion is the Susan B. Anthony List? The outfit doesn’t just want to end abortion; it also opposes abortion exceptions for rape and incest and opposes a woman’s right to access IUDs and the morning-after pill.
“This endorsement should come as no surprise to Virginians who have witnessed Yesli Vega’s anti-abortion extremism on full display ever since she announced her run for Congress,” said Justin Chermol, press secretary for the campaign of Democratic incumbent Abigail Spanberger.
One example of Vega’s extremissm was caught on tape, with Vega saying “abortion is not going to be an option” in states with conservative governors.
“And then you have the other liberal states where they’re going to have a free-for-all at taking innocent life, and that’s where we have to step in and say, What is acceptable and what is not? And in my opinion, I’m sorry, look, God is a giver of life, right, and therefore God takes life,” Vega said in audio from a May 21 event in Spotsylvania County obtained by VPN News.
That wasn’t the first slip on abortion rights from Vega, a member of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors and a sheriff’s deputy. Answering questions at a campaign event in Stafford County in May, according to audio obtained by Axios, Vega brought up the role of rape and incest in the debate over abortion rights.
“The left will say, ‘Well, what about in cases of rape or incest?’ I’m a law enforcement officer. I became a police officer in 2011. I’ve worked one case where, as a result of a rape, the young woman became pregnant,” Vega said.
Vega was then asked, according to the Axios report, “I’ve actually heard that it’s harder for a woman to get pregnant if she’s been raped. Have you heard that?”
“Well, maybe because there’s so much going on in the body. I don’t know. I haven’t, you know, seen any studies. But if I’m processing what you’re saying, it wouldn’t surprise me,” Vega said. “Because it’s not something that’s happening organically. You’re forcing it. The individual, the male, is doing it as quickly — it’s not like, you know — and so I can see why there is truth to that. It’s unfortunate.”
The Seventh District covers a 3,100-square-mile area stretching from Central Virginia and the Richmond metro area into the D.C. exurbs.
Spanberger has won two tight races in the Seventh, in 2018 and 2020, and the race in the 2022 midterm cycle is expected, as those were, to be neck-and-neck.
National polls are showing an increase in momentum for Democrats in the midterms, which had been trending for months toward Republicans, with the energy fueled by reaction from moderate and progressive voters upset with the impact of the Dobbs ruling on women’s rights.
“Vega, a former police officer, has cast doubt on the likelihood that women who are raped can become pregnant and said only God – not a doctor – can decide the life of the mother. Now, she is touting her endorsement from a group that wants to block access to contraception,” Chermol said.
“With just weeks until early voting begins, Virginians will put their trust behind Abigail Spanberger, a public servant who has worked tirelessly in Congress to protect the fundamental rights to privacy, contraception, and choice.”
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Chris Graham
