GOP senator: Politicians should make women's health care decisions

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) slammed Supreme Court decisions that have given women the right to make their own medical decisions, on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Instead, Cotton said elected officials — like himself —should have the power to control women’s rights.

Cotton also told host Chuck Todd disagreed with the decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

“I think those decisions were wrongly decided as a constitutional matter, I think these are decisions that the American people ought to make through their elected representatives,” Cotton said.

Both cases cited by Cotton asserted that women have the right to choose to have an abortion. In the ideal world Cotton describes, those rights would be revoked.

Cotton and the Republican Party have written, supported and endorsed draconian anti-abortion laws, like those recently passed in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Mississippi and in progress in Missouri.

In those instances, the rights asserted in the Supreme Court’s findings are being curtailed and in some instances effectively nullified by elected officials cut from the same cloth as Cotton.

This creates a situation where legislatures dominated by conservative men would appoint themselves as the final word on women’s health care issues. The current standard, created by Supreme Court rulings, puts these decisions in the hands of women and their doctors.

But Cotton’s statements reveal he prefers more control over women and diminished freedom for families and their doctors, with the Court taking a backseat to Republican Party politics.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.