COMMENTARY | During the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire on Saturday, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up candidate Rick Santorum's comments on how contraception should not be federally controlled. He asked Mitt Romney if he would support a hypothetical state ban of contraception. And thus ensued an odd back-and-forth about constitutionality and states' rights that eventually made Romney look very good and Santorum look like a religious extremist.
"I don't know if a state has a right to ban contraception," Romney stated. "No state wants to."
Romney also noted that the question was "unusual."
The former Massachusetts governor, leading in the presidential preference polls in New Hampshire (as tracked by Real Clear Politics), adeptly side-stepped being pinned down by an answer that could potentially hurt him or at least make him appear somewhat foolish. He even deferred fellow candidate Ron Paul at one point, telling Stephanopoulos that "we could ask our Constitutionalist," which got a laugh from the debate audience.
But Romney seemed to get exasperated with Stephanopoulos when he pressed for an answer. Romney simply stated, "Contraception, it's working just fine. Leave it alone."
More laughter.
It should be noted that before pundits and analysts begin taking potshots at Stephanopoulos for asking an irrelevant or meaningless question, he was attempting to draw a contrast between Romney (and perhaps other candidates as well) and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who had stated earlier in the week that he would defund federal appropriations for birth control. Santorum adheres to strict Catholic beliefs and opposes contraception. He also favors allowing states the right to outlaw or ban contraceptive methods.
"The state has a right to do that," he told ABC News earlier in the week. "I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have."
But, as Romney pointed out, there really has been no call for a ban of contraception within any state.
The Guttmacher Institute estimates publicly funded contraception accounts for eliminating about 2 million unintended pregnancies each year. The research center also estimates that "abortions occurring in the United States would be nearly two-thirds higher among women overall and among teens; the number of unintended pregnancies among poor women would nearly double."
Santorum is the only candidate suggesting that birth control be banned.
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