On the August 10 edition of National Public Radio (NPR) Boston affiliate WBUR's Here & Now program, host Robin Young made reference to pro-life Republicans as "anti-choice."
The reference, which violates NPR's own style manual, came in the midst of a discussion with Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer about Republican presidential candidates' plans to roll back various policy initiatives of the Obama era, both those put in place by executive action as well as his signature legislative achievement, ObamaCare. Young and Zelizer were discussing how a Republican president, with a Republican Congress, could "gut" Obama's initiatives without a wholesale repeal.
To give you a fuller context, I've transcribed the portion starting from the 2:39 mark in the audio selection available at HereandNow.WBUR.org (emphases mine; h/t e-mail tipster Elliot):
JULIAN ZELIZER, guest: ...Reagan in the 1980s used to staff government agencies with people who opposed the programs they were running. So he put Clarence Thomas in charge of the EEOC, which dealt with affirmative action, and Thomas just wouldn't enforce the program
ROBIN YOUNG, host: So you can sort of eat away at something from inside an agency.
What about legislation? We've talked about executive actions. But legislation that say a president pushed through Congress, oh say, ObamaCare. Um, Republicans long saying they want to repeal and replace it. But the Supreme Court keeps upholding it, we're not, you know, not a single-branch government. So what would the next president have to do if that president wanted to dismantle ObamaCare?
ZELIZER:I don't think they're going to dismantle ObamaCare. I think at this point the best strategy would be to weaken it. So, uh, going back to the EEOC case, that would be a model for Republicans.
To have this program in effect -- it's not going to be deemed unconstitutional. The Congress is not going to get rid of it. But you make it ineffective. So, you don't allow the exchanges to work very well. You cut away at the funding for the agencies. You don't staff it with the right people. That's a way to make a program weak and maybe even more unpopular over time.
YOUNG: Some of them would say it would be Republicans that that's what many anti-choice Republicans are doing right now with abortion and Roe v. Wade. Some have pledged to kill it with small cuts, enacting requirements for clinics that effectively closed those clinics down, for instance. Or pushing to defund Planned Parenthood. Is that a way that somebody might overturn Roe v. Wade?
JULIAN ZELIZER: Well, it worked, I mean, it has effectively curtailed the right to access to an abortion. This has been going on since the 1970s, first through Congress, when Henry Hyde, an Illinois congressman, realized that rather than just getting rid of Roe v. Wade, the better idea was to put limits on when it could be used and to have federal funding prohibited from those kinds of services. So, I do think this is something a Republican president with the support of a Republican Congress could do pretty effectively.
YOUNG: You don't necessarily go back in to Congress and vote to overturn an entire program, you, as you say, gut it.
ZELIZER: That's exactly right...
