These women might not be smiling if they knew what Barbara Comstock had in mind for their bodies.

These women might not be smiling if they knew what Barbara Comstock had in mind for their bodies.

Barbara Comstock is working really hard to become today's most loathsome political candidate in the nation. She's running for the House in northern Virginia, for the 10th district, and has joined the ranks of the hypocritical Republicans who have embraced over-the-counter birth control pills to try to divert attention from all the other things they've done in the War on Women.

For example, Comstock isn't mentioning that, as a delegate to the state assembly, she supported Virginia's attempt to mandate forced vaginal ultrasounds for women seeking an abortion. Here's her spiel on birth control:



In a conversation with ThinkProgress following her speech, Comstock said she's on board with the growing list of Republicans endorsing over-the-counter birth control. "It would be more accessible," she said. "Instead of having to get to the clinic, it would be at any drug store, which is a lot easier for people." Republicans have thus far stayed mum on whether or not contraception should be covered by insurance without a prescription—a requirement experts consider vital to expanding access. Comstock, however, said she believes "the companies can decide if they have a conscience issue with it and don't want to provide it." She claimed increased availability would bring down the cost to "6 or 7 dollars," and cited the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) and their support for over-the-counter birth control to back up her position. But the ACOG has recently blasted Republican candidates for using over-the-counter contraception as "a political tool," and clarified that they support many additional policies that Republicans have yet to embrace, such as providing all contraception "at no cost" under the Affordable Care Act.

Comstock, of course, is among the Obamacare repealers perfectly fine with taking away women's access to contraception at no additional cost through their insurance, and making them pay for it at the drug store. And if they can't afford it and end up pregnant, they'll get a forced ultrasound out of the whole deal, but at least Comstock didn't get her entire way on that one—it will be an abdominal ultrasound.

I'll just add this bit to rest my case for Comstock's awfulness: "Comstock, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and the military contractor Blackwater, has also been a vocal opponent of expanding Medicaid to 400,000 currently uninsured Virginians, an estimated 169,000 of whom are women." Oh, and she was chairwoman of Scooter Libby's defense fund. What a winner!