Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio)<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/John_Boehner_official_portrait.jpg">John Boehner</a>/Wikimedia Commons
Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) is pretty aggressively anti-abortion. Under his watch last spring, the House pushed a “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion” bill that initially would have gone so far as to redefine rape, along with another measure that could have required IRS agents to conduct abortion audits in certain cases. Pretty anti-abortion in other words—but not anti-abortion enough for David Lewis of Cincinnati, who announced this week that he will launch a primary challenge against the most powerful Republican elected official in America.
Per his statement:
In his first nine months as House Speaker, John Boehner has had several opportunities to defund the largest baby killers in America – Planned Parenthood. But Boehner caved in to Obama, and gave Planned Parenthood taxpayer’s hard earned dollars. Neither pro-lifers nor Tea Party activists should ever forgive John Boehner for lavishing our money on Planned Parenthood. It is clear from the facts that Planned Parenthood is not only the largest killer of unborn babies in America, but also that they have become a criminal syndicate covering up the crimes of rapists, sex traffickers, and pedophiles.
His website doesn’t currently list any issues, save for this brief platform: “The Word of God, including the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, is the foundation that America and the Bill of Rights rests on.” In March, Lewis was arrested at Boehner’s district office, where he was protesting over the Planned Parenthood issue. As he told the Middletown Journal, “the only way to hold his feet to the fire…is to hold demonstrations like this one.” Apparently, he thinks he’s found another way.
Update: Right Wing Watch argues, somewhat comepllingly, that Lewis’ campaign is basically an excuse to run graphic images of fetuses on local television stations.
