Rep. Nancy Mace: ‘I Am Pro-life, But I Do Support Exceptions for Rape’

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that she’s pro-life, but she supports excepts for rape.

When asked whether she thinks that exceptions for rape and victims of incest should be backed with a federal law, Mace said, “Well, absolutely. I’m someone who- I am pro-life, but I do support exceptions for rape. I’m a rape victim myself, and when you realize what’s happened in your life, the trauma, the emotional, the mental, the physical trauma in a woman’s life, that decision- she should make that decision with her doctor and between her and her God.

Mace said she’s working to support those exceptions in her life, “not only as a state lawmaker, but now as a member of Congress, and South Carolina has a fetal heartbeat bill that was signed into law that had those exceptions, because I told my rape story, and those stories are often missed and criticized, and women are attacked when they tell those stories, and that’s something that I’ve talked about extensively throughout the years as well.”

When asked what she thinks about restrictions in states that would require rape victims to provide police reports in order to obtain an abortion, Mace said, “I can’t speak to other states, I- from experience as a state lawmaker, I know that South Carolina’s fetal heartbeat bill would not have passed without exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother, and I told that story. 

“I felt it was really- a really important story, a story that’s often missed and not told because women are afraid, and you can even see in public comments and on social media when I talk about it, the ways in which that I get attacked for telling that story, and one of the things that I think partially that’s missing in this conversation is- is that,” the congresswoman said.

“When you have victims, when Ohio did their fetal heartbeat bill, there was a 10-year-old girl that had been found to be pregnant who had been raped repeatedly by her father, and so, as I know, it’s part of the Republican Party platform. The vast majority of Republicans support those exceptions for rape and incest and life of the mother, and it’s important for some of us to step forward and tell those stories that are often missed in all of this as well,” she said.

“So to be clear, you would support a vote in Congress, federal legislation to enshrine those exceptions?” host Margaret Brennan asked.

“Well, yeah, and I think that- I think one of the things that’s missing, and I’m glad that you’re bringing this up in all the conversation, the media coverage about Roe v. Wade being overturned, is that what this does- It’s not an all-out federal ban on abortion, but it puts it back into state legislatures and into Congress,” Mace said.

“You saw Congress a couple of years ago ban late-term abortions, for example, and so what this does is it puts it back to the states. It puts it back into Congress to- to deal with and figure out, and it was even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who we all know was working for women’s rights and thought there was a constitutional right, knew that Roe v Wade was flawed,” the congresswoman said.

Brennan noted that South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster wants further restrictions on abortion without exceptions for rape or incest. 

When asked whether that’s too restrictive, Mace said, “Well, I would- would only support legislation in South Carolina that have- had exceptions for rape and incest and life of the mother. I don’t believe that that would pass without those exceptions.”

“What about six weeks of pregnancy?” Brennan asked.

“Well that bill has already been signed into law, the fetal heartbeat bill for South Carolina that he signed, I guess it was last year, had- it was 6 to 8 weeks is when the heartbeat is found, but that bill had exceptions for rape and incest and life of the mother. So that law is already on the books in South Carolina and it’ll be up to the legislature to determine if they want even more restrictions on it,” Mace said.

When asked whether it’s a political mistake to just paint this as pro-life or pro-choice, Mace said, “Well, I think that some of the polling is murky, too, depends on how you ask the question and who’s paying for the polling.

“There is some polling out there that says that there are only 25% of Americans, some say up to 30% that want abortion in every case, they don’t want any restrictions. So that says to me that there’s a vast, vast majority of Americans that are okay with restrictions on abortion. We have some of the most liberal abortion laws in the world,” she said.

“If you look at Europe, there are many European countries that don’t allow abortion after the first trimester,” the congresswoman said. “And in Poland, for example, they don’t allow any abortions unless there- it’s rape, incest or life of the mother. So it’s a complicated issue.”

“It is a bit of an outlier there in Europe,” Brennan said.

“Right, but Portugal’s 12 weeks,” Mace said.

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