NY Times Exposes Michelle Steel’s Deceptive Ad

Sep

2024

PRESS RELEASE

NY Times Exposes Michelle Steel’s Deceptive Ad

ICYMI: New York Times Exposes Michelle Steel’s Deceptive Ad and Extreme Record Against Reproductive Rights

New York Times Highlights Michelle Steel’s Lies About Her Extreme Anti-Abortion Agenda

Garden Grove, CA — On Friday, the New York Times reported that GOP Rep Michelle Steel’s misleading new campaign ad, where she claims to support protections for in-vitro fertilization services when in fact she twice sponsored a bill that would have banned IVF, is part of a larger trend of Congressional Republicans trying to distance themselves from extreme anti-reproductive rights legislation that is deeply unpopular with voters. In the article, despite having co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act and an identical previous bill, Steel claims to have taken her name off the arcane anti-abortion legislation because of “confusion” over whether giving legal rights to fertilized eggs would impact access to IVF treatments. The three-page bill makes no exceptions for IVF or other procedures and it defines a human as “every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, starting from fertilization, cloning, or any moment a human life begins.”

Image of New York Times Headline: "GOP Candidates Distort Records on Women, Seeking to Blunt a Liability"

Read the full New York Times story HERE

Ms. Steel adds: “For some, protecting women is a campaign issue. For me, there’s nothing more important.”

Ms. Steel, however, twice cosponsored the Life at Conception Act, a bill that would grant legal personhood to fertilized eggs, effectively criminalizing abortions and potentially aspects of I.V.F. treatments, which typically involve the destruction of embryos.

In the interview, Ms. Steel said that her flip-flopping on the bill was the result of “confusion” about whether “I.V.F. was in or not, or they were going to take it out.” The three-page-long bill clearly does not contain exceptions for in vitro fertilization or anything else, flatly stating that its purpose is “to implement equal protection for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.”

As a reminder since taking office…

Steel co-sponsored a national federal abortion ban TWICE, that includes no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother; voted against the Right to Contraception Act, which would protect a person’s ability to access contraceptives; and voted yes on a bill that would have prevented women from receiving FDA approved mifepristone through the mail or at pharmacies. Despite being called out repeatedly by her challenger, Army veteran and workers’ rights advocate Derek Tran, as well as the New York Times and Rolling Stone Magazine, Steel continues to lie to her constituents about her extreme anti-reproductive rights voting record.
In 2021 and 2024, Rep. Steel cosponsored the Life at Conception Act, a bill to enact a national abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother. In addition, it would eliminate certain medical choices for women, including some cancer treatments and IVF. Steel voted against the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022, which protects a person's ability to access out-of-state abortion services. She opposed the Women’s Health Protection Act in both 2021 and 2022.

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Army Veteran Derek Tran is a DCCC Red To Blue candidate running in California’s 45th Congressional District which encompasses portions of Orange and Los Angeles Counties in Southern California. A majority-minority district, the District has the second largest AAPI population (36.97%) of any Congressional District, and the largest Vietnamese community in the country. President Biden won the current district lines by +6 points and it has a +6 point Democratic registration advantage. It includes all or part of the Cities of Garden Grove, Westminster, Cerritos, Buena Park, Placentia, Hawaiian Gardens, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Artesia, Los Alamitos, La Palma, Brea, Lakewood, and Fullerton, as well as the unincorporated community of Rossmoor.

Use of Derek Tran's military rank, job titles, and photographs in uniform does not imply endorsement by the Dept. of Defense or U.S. Army.