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Rubio: No abortions for Zika-infected women

Sen. Marco Rubio said Saturday that he doesn’t believe a pregnant woman infected with the Zika virus should have the right to an abortion — even if she had reason to believe the child would be born with severe microcephaly.

"I understand a lot of people disagree with my view – but I believe that all human life is worthy of protection of our laws. And when you present it in the context of Zika or any prenatal condition, it’s a difficult question and a hard one," Rubio told POLITICO.

"But if I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of life."

Abortion and Zika became politically intertwined in June when Congress failed to pass a Zika-relief bill, in part due to a dispute over Planned Parenthood. Zika has started to spread quickly through Florida, which now has 422 cases -- more than any other state in the nation -- and it has alarmed families and health experts because the virus has been linked to severe microcephaly in infants born to some infected pregnant women.

“We’ve never before had a mosquito-borne disease that can cause a birth defect,” the Centers for Disease Control’s director, Tom Friedan, said Thursday in Doral after touring Wynwood. “That’s why we take it so seriously. The key is to protect pregnant women.”

Without prompting, Rubio acknowledged the challenges of the birth defects that result from Zika.

"Obviously, microcephaly is a terrible prenatal condition that kids are born with. And when they are, it’s a lifetime of difficulties," he said. "So I get it. I’m not pretending to you that that’s an easy question you asked me. But I’m prolife. And I’m strongly prolife. I believe all human life should be protected by our law, irrespective of the circumstances or condition of that life."

Rubio has taken a leadership role in trying to prevent the spread of Zika. He became the first Republican to co-sponsor President Obama’s $1.9 billion Zika-fighting legislation, which was watered down by House Republicans after it passed the Senate. The legislation ultimately failed. Rubio points out that he voted for every Zika bill he could.

The campaign of one of his Democratic Senate opponents, U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, pointed to that vote and said in a press release Saturday that “Rubio exploited the Zika crisis to attack women’s health funding and Planned Parenthood.”

A staunch pro-life conservative, Rubio’s position on abortion has been consistent in the Florida Legislature, U.S. Senate and the campaign trail. A year ago, for instance, Rubio said on the presidential debate stage that he was opposed to abortion in cases of rape or incest. Murphy’s campaign called that position “extreme and offensive.”

Rubio took issue with the Democrats’ raising Planned Parenthood because, he said, “the words Planned Parenthood don’t appear anywhere in the law.”

Rubio said the bill limited federal Zika money to “community health centers and hospitals, basically Medicare providers— with limited funds, you wanted to ensure those funds were going to facilities in every community in the state. In the end, I voted for laws that don’t have that condition there, either. I just want the money to start flowing.”

Rubio faulted Democrats for not passing the scaled-back legislation.

“The Planned Parenthood angle is something they basically made up to have a political reason not to pass Zika so they can come back in August and campaign on it,“ he said. “That’s what I mean by political volleyball. Both sides have played that game. I would have preferred the House just passed a clean funding bill and I’ll vote for that if it comes out.”

I knew the protest was going to spiral into something bigger when I saw a man in tears push a police officer. I had never seen anyone lay a hand on a cop, even amicably. But these people gathered now in the street were utterly out of patience. I wasn’t sure whether I would be caught in the crossfire. Then a community activist I had earlier asked to interview spotted me, and called me over.

“I can see from your face that you don’t think you’re safe,” he told me. He was black; I’m Chinese-American. “You are. You’re a minority, too.”

It was just the reassurance I was looking for. It would also turn out to be wrong.

[...]

Shortly after I arrived, I saw the beginnings of a shoving match between a line of policemen in riot gear and the distraught residents of the neighborhood. I was the only non-black person there at the time—the other news crews had left—and my presence was soon questioned: Some pointed me out as an interloper; others, like the reassuring activist, told me I would be fine. I brushed off the more hostile comments as much as I could: They were angry, and anger doesn’t always hit its intended target.

As the confrontation went on, the crowd became more and more violent. What started as shoving and rock throwing escalated into smashing cars and setting businesses aflame. By nightfall, I was crouching behind a Chevy Suburban to avoid bullets. Another intern, a white man who had arrived later on to take photos, huddled beside me. After the gunfire ceased, he emerged from behind the car to take more pictures while I stayed behind.

“Get your white ass out of here!” he soon heard. “You better not let me fucking catch you!”

After trying unsuccessfully to defuse the situation, my colleague was flying down the street with a group of men chasing him. Wanting to help, but not knowing how, I decided to run after them. In order to run faster, my colleague dropped the two bulky cameras hanging around his neck. When I tried to retrieve them, and yelled at him to get out of the area, some in the group of rioters started chasing after me too. As a former back-of-the-pack runner in middle school gym class, I wasn’t surprised when they caught me. When they threw me to the ground, I reflexively curled up into a ball. Blows landed on my back, head and torso.

“Stop! He’s not white! He’s Asian!”

I wasn’t sure who said it, or how they knew my race, but within seconds, the punches stopped. Someone grabbed me by the arm and lifted me up. As my vision came back into focus, I saw a group of concerned black faces and heard someone repeating, “Don’t fuck with Chinese dudes.” My attackers had run off. Those who had intervened escorted me to safety.

The Journal Sentinel pulled its reporters off the scene that night once it got violent; thankfully, I walked away from the incident with only scrapes and bruises, and none of my colleagues were injured. Still, I was rattled.

The voice that stuck in my head over the next few days, as I talked to my relatives and friends about it, belonged to a woman who’d come up to me in the afternoon scrum: “You’re Asian, right?” she said to me. “Why are you even here?"