GOP candidates for governor spar over anti-abortion bona fides

Former radio show host Bill Spadea, a Republican who’s running for governor, raised eyebrows earlier this month when he told supporters during a campaign stop that abortion would not be an issue in the general election.

His campaign rivals swarmed, challenging his anti-abortion bona fides.

Spadea, though, told the New Jersey Monitor in a recent interview that he merely meant that abortion is a “distraction” Democrats likely will use to draw attention away from Jersey-specific issues that matter more to voters, like the high cost of living, crime, transportation woes, and immigration enforcement.

“I think the Democrats would love to make it an issue, because they think they can win by painting a false narrative that somehow pro-life candidates are anti-women,” Spadea said. “I do not think it’s going to be a top issue. And if the Democrats try to make it one, which I believe they will, especially if Mikie Sherrill is their nominee, it will serve as a distraction on the issues that New Jerseyans are really talking about.”

His GOP rivals, including former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac, state Sen. Jon Bramnick, and former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, disagree.

“This is always going to be an issue because of the deep passion on both sides,” Bramnick said.

Kranjac saw Spadea’s comments about abortion as unacceptably dismissive for a candidate who landed endorsements from the national and state Right to Life groups.

“I will make it an issue every day,” Kranjac said. “It’s really important to change our culture of death and get New Jersey out of the abortion business.”

Republicans are hoping they can win the seat now held by Gov. Phil Murphy, a two-term Democrat who cannot seek a third term in November. But first they must make it through the June 10 primary to win their party’s nomination.

Bramnick proclaims himself pro-choice. When Ciattarelli ran for governor in 2021, he said he would sign a bill protecting abortion rights if the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade (it did the following year). Both Bramnick and Ciattarelli say getting an abortion should be a decision that’s between a woman, her family, her doctors, and her faith.

All the leading GOP candidates oppose or have qualms with a law Murphy signed in 2022 to codify abortion rights in New Jersey, largely over an aversion to late-term abortions.

“I think they went farther than Roe v. Wade, and that’s why I abstained on that codification,” Bramnick said.

Ciattarelli would ban elective abortions after 20 weeks, while Bramnick said he opposes late-term abortions except in cases of medical emergencies. Kranjac said he would ban abortions after 20 weeks without exception during his first year in office, with the ban creeping earlier in pregnancy over time in line with his goal of “protecting life from conception to natural death.”

Spadea didn’t draw the line at any specific week, but said: “I am in line with mainstream America, which is: Late-term and up-to-birth abortion is abhorrent, and it will be very positive to see that limitation put in New Jersey.”

A 2022 Pew Research Center poll found that most Americans support abortion rights, but opposition grows at later stages of pregnancy.

All the leading GOP candidates for governor back requiring parental notification for minors who seek abortions, with Spadea supporting exceptions for rape and incest.

“The fact that a 16-year-old in New Jersey needs her parents’ permission to get her ears pierced, but not get an abortion is absurd,” Ciattarelli’s campaign website says.

Kranjac would appoint anti-abortion judges as part of his strategy on the issue.

Ciattarelli, Spadea, and Kranjac want to cut public funding for abortion, with Spadea and Kranjac saying they would cut funding for Planned Parenthood and send that support instead to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, which the Murphy administration has labeled deceptive.

“As governor, I’m going to work very hard to empower pregnancy resource centers (for) young women, especially these young women who go to these centers that are from abusive relationships, don’t have any resources, they’re scared to death, they may be unsure of who exactly the father is, the dad’s left the scene,” Spadea said. “Just terrible circumstances for these young women, and they’re not given any choice.”