It seems like every day Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump says something awful.

His most recent terrible utterance?

That women who get abortions should be punished.

Oh, and that men who perform them (let alone cause an unwanted pregnancy) should not be punished. (And let's not forget that Trump has been pro-choice in the past.)

This most recent proclamation (which he since went back on some) caps more than a week's worth of attention on the candidate's attitudes toward women: retweeting nasty comments about his opponent's wife and not apologizing after his campaign manager was charged with simple battery for pushing a female reporter.

Again, this is the person who has a pretty good shot at winning the Republican Party's presidential nomination. In 2016.

Obviously, prominent Democrats jumped on the comments.

And pro-choice bloggers like this one pointed out that, you know, having an unwanted pregnancy and subsequently getting an abortion are kind of punishing in and of themselves.

Terry Sanders, head of the Florida Branch of the National Organization for Women, echoed that sentiment in an email to CL:

Mr. Trump doesn't realize women are already being punished for abortions every day. They are stigmatized, fed false information, required to run a gauntlet through protesters to get to health clinics, called murderers and so much more. This country needs to wake up and defend women against the rabid right-wing trying to take away their reproductive rights.

Perhaps more surprisingly is how Republicans are reacting.

The campaign of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump's chief rival, said it's the doctors, not the ladies, that ought to be punished.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, the anti-choice nonprofit March for Life quickly condemned Trump's comments.


For months, Trump's critics have been wondering when he will finally say something so awful that it tanks his campaign. And for months, he has shocked his detractors; in the wake of sexist, racist, violence-inducing comments (not to mention bald-faced lies), his popularity has only grown.

Presciently, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight team suggested on Tuesday that the recent scrutiny of Trump's attitude toward women could ultimately torpedo his campaign, given that he hasn't been doing very well among female voters all along.

But maybe not. After all, it's been a weird freakin' election cycle.

This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2016.