A Democratic gubernatorial hopeful in Maine, who is scheduled to campaign with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Sunday and Monday, has been pitching himself to voters as a pro-choice candidate for governor, but his track record indicates that wasn\u2019t always his stance.<\/p>\n
As a state lawmaker, he received a 100% rating from the Maine Right to Life \u2014 a designation indicating a voting record wholly consistent with pro-life policies.<\/p>\n
Jackson\u2019s reversal demonstrates the fallout of the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court<\/a> decision that ended a constitutional right to an abortion and made the issue, previously a federal debate, a state-driven consideration.<\/p>\n In their 2022 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that no guarantee of a right to an abortion existed in the Constitution, meaning that individual states would have to decide on a case-by-case basis where to draw the line under what circumstances residents could legally end a pregnancy.<\/p>\n TIM WALZ TALKS ABORTION DURING FINAL CAMPAIGN RALLY WITH MICHIGAN VOTERS: ‘EVERYTHING IS ON THE LINE’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Maine, with Jackson\u2019s help, immediately passed expansions to abortion access, removing restrictions on late-term abortions.<\/a><\/p>\n The move prompted praise for Jackson<\/a> from Planned Parenthood, the country\u2019s largest abortion provider.<\/p>\n “We applaud President Jackson and the 20 state senators and 76 representatives acting in the best interest of Mainers today,” Planned Parenthood <\/a>wrote in a press release.<\/p>\n Just 10 years earlier, Jackson had voted for a bill<\/a> in 2011 that would have affirmed personhood in the womb.<\/p>\n Two years later, in 2013, Jackson also voted to advance<\/a> counseling requirements for women considering an abortion, providing them with second-opinion resources designed to explore alternatives to ending a pregnancy.<\/p>\n Both of those efforts failed.<\/p>\n PUERTO RICO GOVERNOR SIGNS LAW RECOGNIZING UNBORN BABIES AS HUMAN BEINGS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Even so, they garnered enough attention to put Jackson on the radar of abortion rights groups \u2014 and not in a good way.<\/p>\n In 2014, EMILY\u2019s List, a pro-abortion group, launched a six-figure TV ad campaign against Jackson, according to local reporting.<\/p>\n “Politicians should not be involved in a woman\u2019s personal medical decisions about her pregnancy. Period,” Emily Cain, Jackson\u2019s primary opponent in 2014, told the Portland Press Herald.<\/a><\/p>\n As recently as October 2022, just four months after the Dobbs decision, Jackson told local reporters<\/a> he was struggling with the issue.<\/p>\n Since declaring his candidacy for governor last May, Jackson seems to have left that struggle behind.<\/p>\n “The right to decide if and when to start a family is fundamental to our freedom and to who we are as Americans. It is a deeply personal decision that should not be made by politicians or justices,” Jackson said in a post to Instagram<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n “On the anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade,<\/a> I will continue to fight back against efforts to undermine abortion rights and stand up for reproductive freedom in Maine,” Jackson wrote.<\/p>\n Sanders, who has supported abortion and has run as a pro-choice candidate for decades, officially endorsed Jackson on Friday, calling him the governor “that working Mainers need.”<\/p>\n “Troy is different,” Sanders said. “Fighting for the working class of Maine is not something new for Troy. That\u2019s what he has done for his entire life as a logger and as a member of the Maine state legislature. Troy knows what\u2019s going on with the working class of Maine because he\u2019s part of that working class.”<\/p>\n ‘WE’VE INVITED YOU’: CHRIS WALLACE SPARS WITH GILLIBRAND OVER ABORTION CONTROVERSY<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n “Troy has also been part of our progressive working class movement from the beginning,” he continued. “He has always stood with those of us who understand that health care is a human right, that workers deserve a living wage, and that we need a government that works for all-not just the ultra-wealthy and well-connected.”<\/p>\n Notably, Jackson does not list abortion access as a top priority on his campaign website.<\/p>\n In Maine, there is no strict cutoff that prevents abortion at any point in a pregnancy, although some protections apply after viability, around the 24 to 26 week mark. Late-term abortions are permissible with the approval of a licensed physician.<\/p>\n Fox News Digital reached out to Sanders and Jackson’s campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Democratic gubernatorial hopeful in Maine, who is scheduled to campaign with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Sunday and Monday, has been pitching himself to voters as a pro-choice candidate for governor, but his track record indicates that wasn\u2019t always his stance. As a state lawmaker, he received a 100% rating from the Maine Right … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}