Even in a Pandemic, Chris Smith Can't Stop Crusade Against Women

Sunday March 15 marked a turning point in the COVID-19 pandemic in New Jersey. The number of cases in the state reached 99, the first two deaths were reported, and Governor Phil Murphy told the media he would announce plans to close schools statewide the next day.

"We have no choice," Murphy told one TV station. "Life is not as it used to be."

For Congressman Chris Smith, however, life stayed pretty much as it always was. No matter what's going on in New Jersey, if there's an abortion battle somewhere on the planet, Smith's in it. And on March 15, the fight was in Northern Ireland.

Smith, in his capacity as co-chair of the Pro-Life Caucus and "Senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee," signed a letter March 15 calling on the Northern Irish government to re-regulate abortion under the historic Good Friday agreement, rather than allow a UK law to take effect that would decriminalize abortion and recognize same-sex marriage. The letter gained press coverage as New Jersey shut down.

The double life that one former opponent once called "the two Chris Smiths" hasn't changed after 40 years. But read a paper at home, and it's as if pro-life Chris Smith doesn't exist. A short profile on Smith's current race against lawyer and former State Department official Stephanie Schmid, which appeared Monday in the Asbury Park Press (APP), inexplicably never mentions his decades of crusading against abortion and his opposition to LGBTQ rights, though both hang on the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Smith's duplicity—and the local press' willingness to look the other way—means his hometown media ignored his signature-collecting in 2018, as he pressured HHS to strip Title X funding from women's clinics. Title X capacity is now down 46%, and the policy Smith championed is the subject of a complaint from the American Medical Association.

Shamelessly, Smith claimed to have worked well with President Obama in the latest APP story, but in the fall of 2012 he said Obama could use "a little humility" in foreign affairs, a criticism he has somehow avoided leveling against Donald Trump.

All Quiet on the Ocean Front

To be sure, Smith was photographed in his New Jersey office on March 16, 2020, taking a phone call from an Ocean County health official, and he emphasized the need for "no parties or sleepovers." There was no mention of steps that would be needed to address challenges with the large Orthodox Jewish community in Lakewood, where the COVID-19 positivity rate was recently reported at 27%.

Smith's hometown press coverage makes him look like a candidate for mayor, not the globe-trotting right-wing menace that he is. His anti-abortion activism in Ireland, for example, dates back to the 1983 referendum in the Republic of Ireland that led to passage of "the Eighth," an amendment that outlawed abortion until it was replaced in 2018.

To find out what Smith is up to, you have to do your homework. A good place to start is LifeSite News, an anti-abortion, anti-LGBT site that reports on "culture, life, and family." An October 1, 2020, search produced 355 results on our congressman. By comparison, the NJ.com site, which includes outlets that have covered him for more than 40 years, produced 1,180 results. So, it's fair to say that Smith is one of LifeSite's regulars.

Tracking Smith on LifeSite News offers a window into his world, the one that exists beyond handing out medals and the never-ending quest to pass a Lyme disease bill. Here you can learn that Smith's mind was on the Emerald Isle when the pandemic was breaking out in New Jersey. You can find the headline with Smith declaring, "Planned Parenthood Is Child Abuse Incorporated."

You can also learn that in August 2014, Smith told a radio host that the Obama administration had "an obsession" with promoting "the abortion agenda and the LGBT agenda in our foreign policy."

What had him so riled up? Vice President Joe Biden had told a US-Africa Summit that "certain common ingredients of success" in the 21st century included economic integration, a fair court system, and the need to respect the rights of individuals, regardless of gender, religion, or "who they love." In other words, Smith thought it was an "obsession" to tell African leaders that it's not OK to lock up gay men who have private, consexual sex.

And to keep his war on women close to home, in June 2019, Smith led a group of GOP House and Senate members in forcing Congress' personnel office to make sure none of the health plans covering the staff would pay for abortion.

The press treat Smith with kid gloves because they think he can't lose. Vote for Stephanie Schmid and prove them wrong.