Former Democratic congressman Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania launched a new attack on Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan on MSNBC Tuesday morning, claiming "Paul Ryan also believes we should ban all birth control as well. He voted for that."
In response to Murphy’s smear, the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack wrote:
Murphy's claim is false and bizarre: Ryan does not favor banning contraception, nor has he ever voted to ban contraception. In the modern era, there hasn't been any legislation offered by anyone in Congress to ban birth control.
In fact, Ryan, like other conservative Republicans in the House, has voted for hundreds of millions of dollars in contraceptive funding for low-income women through the program Title X. Ryan has voted for the Pence amendment to keep Title X funds from going to the largest abortion provider in America, but the Pence amendment did not decrease Title X funding by one dime.
McCormack likens Murphy’s false attack to BuzzFeed’s false reporting this weekend. BuzzFeed said that Ryan supported the Sanctity of Life Act, a bill that "seeks to ban all abortions, including in instances of rape and incest."
National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru dashed BuzzFeed’s claim, noting that the bill "doesn’t ban anything: It merely affirms that legislatures have the authority to protect unborn life."