Romney Leads on Women's Issues --- Back to the Nineteenth Century?

Via Jessica Valenti on Twitter, we learn this about Romney's views:

Mitt Romney today said no abortion legislation is part of his agenda, but he would prohibit federally-funded international nonprofits from providing abortions in other countries.
“There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda,” the GOP presidential candidate told The Des Moines Register’s editorial board during a meeting today before his campaign rally at a Van Meter farm.
But by executive order, not by legislation, he would reinstate the so-called Mexico City policy that bans U.S. foreign aid dollars from being used to do abortions, he said.
President Barack Obama dropped the policy on his tenth day in office, Romney said.
In response, Obama’s Iowa spokeswoman, Erin Seidler, said: “Mitt Romney’s not telling the truth about his positions. He’s said he would appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn [Roe v. Wade]. Romney may try to change his image four weeks before Election Day, but can’t change the fact that women can’t trust him.”

Of course legislation is not what the president does, in any case.  Here's Romney in his own words, earlier this year:




And a year again he was firmly behind the Personhood Amendment, the one about Egg-Americans and their rights, combined with fewer rights for the aquaria, of course.
 
This is the time in elections when  the candidates pretend to move towards the imagined middle positions, when the bases have been fed with fresh meat and so on.   Given the short memory of many voters, it's useful to look back to see where Romney actually stands, on reproductive choice and other issues about women.

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Added later:  Romney's campaign has already reassured the conservative base that, indeed, women's repro rights will be up to them in the possible Romney administration.  So that's clear, then.