Cruz Campaign Uses Flint Water Crisis to Bolster Anti-Choice Credentials
A Cruz campaign official said staffers would only be giving out water to crisis pregnancy centers “to give to expecting moms and moms of little ones.”
Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) campaign headed to Flint, Michigan, this week to help distribute water to the city’s residents, but the Republican presidential candidate’s team only offered aid to crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) in the area, according to reports.
Volunteers for Cruz’s campaign traveled Wednesday to Flint to hand out water bottles to those impacted by the public health crisis that has left thousands of the city’s residents with contaminated water after state officials switched the city’s water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River without properly treating it. In doing so, officials allowed lead to “leach” from pipes and fixtures into the water.
Although more than 8,000 children in Flint could have been exposed to lead in their water, Cruz’s Michigan state director, Wendy Lynn Day wrote in a Tuesday Facebook post that the campaign would only be giving out the water to CPCs “to give to expecting moms and moms of little ones.”
In a statement shared on Twitter by Detroit News reporter Chad Livengood, Day reportedly said that the donations to the CPCs would both help Flint and demonstrate “the pro-life values of Senator Cruz.”
Cruz is one of the only Republican candidates to offer harsh criticism of the crisis in Flint, calling it an “absolute travesty,” and demanding those who allowed the lead-contaminated water to be distributed to the community to be held accountable for poisoning children.
Reports have shown that CPCs like those trumpeted by the Cruz campaign regularly lie to women in order to dissuade them from ending a pregnancy. Research conducted by NARAL Pro-Choice California found that 91 percent of CPCs visited as part of the study misinformed patients about the mental and physical impact of abortions. Many CPCs are staffed by anti-choice activists dressed as doctors.
Cruz isn’t the only Republican presidential candidate who has recently made a show of support for anti-choice CPCs. Last week, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush promised in an interview with the Associated Press to work with Congress to expand funding for CPCs.