Rep. Jared Golden Of Maine Hits Republican Challenger Over Abortion Votes

State Rep. Austin Theriault voted against several key abortion rights measures and avoided casting a vote on others.

Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, one of the U.S. House’s most vulnerable Democrats, is blasting his Republican challenger, state Rep. Austin Theriault, for failing to stand up for abortion rights in Maine’s state House.

Theriault, a former race car driver from Fort Kent, told the Bangor Daily News in 2022 that he would not act to restrict abortion rights in the state, but in a questionnaire for the Christian Education League in the last election cycle, he said he supported restricting abortion. He also identifies as “pro-life” and welcomed the June 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a federal right to abortion.

Once in office, Theriault voted against enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution, against another bill protecting abortion access in the event health facilities merge and against legislation expanding abortion rights in the state to include the period after fetal viability. Previously, pregnancies after the 20th to 24th week range, when a fetus becomes viable, were permitted only to “preserve the life or health of the mother.”

In addition to the three no votes, Theriault was absent for votes on successful bills to strengthen legal protections for Maine abortion providers who serve people from states where it is illegal, to require that health insurance plans cover abortions without cost-sharing and to explicitly forbid Maine municipalities to restrict abortion rights. He was not present for votes on a number of Republican-backed anti-abortion measures: restricting public funding for abortion, barring tele-health options for prescribing abortion pills, requiring additional counseling and a 48-hour waiting period before abortions, and requiring parental consent for minors seeking an abortion.

Theriault “is hand-picked and backed by House GOP leaders because he’ll rubber-stamp their harmful agenda — including putting government between women and their doctors with an extreme national abortion ban,” Golden said in a statement to HuffPost. “He praised the overturning of Roe v. Wade, voted against reproductive freedom in the Maine Legislature, and spent the entire Republican Primary telling voters he was the most extreme anti-choice candidate in the race. He’ll run from his record now, but it’s clear whose side he’s on.”