A group of conservative Republican women has declared that the so-called "war on women" is over — more than two years after a GOP candidate sparked an outrage with his "legitimate rape" comments.
Concerned Women for America (CWA), an evangelical Christian women's group, hosted a panel discussion on Monday called "War No More" to make the point that the war is dead and that they are the big winners, according to The Daily Beast.
The organization, viewed as the conservative counter to the liberal National Organization for Women, is now hoping to win over female voters in the next election.
In 2012, Democrats accused Republicans of waging a "war on women" after Missouri Rep. Todd Akin said during a Senate bid that he believed pregnancy can be prevented by a woman involved in a "legitimate rape" because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
The Republican, who represented Missouri's second congressional district for 12 years, was soundly defeated by Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in what was seen as a winnable election.
The panelists alleged that Democrats had craftily turned Akin's shocking comments and similar incendiary remarks by Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock into a "war on women." A fierce abortion foe, Mourdock said unintended pregnancies as a result of rape were "something God intended."
But one of the panelists, GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway, took aim at Democrats for diverting from real women's issues while speaking to a female audience of conservative activists and congressional staffers, the Beast reported.
"What do most women do every week? Do they fill up the gas tank and the grocery cart? Or do they get an abortion?" said Conway. "The notion that we can't think about anything other than from the waist down is congenitally flawed."
To drive home her point that the alleged war is over, Conway noted that that Democrats had unsuccessfully doubled down on the "war" plan during the 2014 elections and had suffered heavy defeats.
Nevertheless, Republicans are facing an uphill fight to win over female voters before the next presidential election after taking a beating in that demographic in 2012, the Beast reported.
Sabrina Schaeffer, the president of the progressive group Independent Women's Forum, claimed, in fact, that liberals are way out in front of conservatives on their messaging.
"The right simply doesn't take gender differences seriously enough," said Schaeffer. "Thinking about and talking to women is not the same as pandering. It is not the same as playing gender differences."
In 2012, President Barack Obama had an 11-point margin over Mitt Romney among women voters, while 66 percent of unmarried women backed the Democrat. And with Hillary Clinton as the probable Democratic nominee, the figures could be even more significant, the Beast said.
However, CWA President Penny Nance endeavored to warn female voters about Clinton while calling her "Claire Underwood" during the discussion.
Nance was attempting to draw a comparison between the former first lady, who has had her own personal political agenda, and the ambitious first lady in the Netflix Capitol Hill drama "House of Cards."