By Mona Charen

It’s true single women tend to favor Democrats, but that isn’t an abortion vote; it’s a vote for security. American women are about equally divided between the pro-life and pro-choice positions, with the seesaw sometimes tilting a bit one way and sometimes the other, depending upon the polling question. Most Americans, including most of those who describe themselves as pro-choice, are comfortable with restrictions on abortion after 12 weeks gestation.

What Americans do recoil from is perceived extremism, and that’s where Republicans need to learn their lines. …

Democrats actually don’t like to talk about abortion much. They know that voters are not with them, so they disguise what they’re for with euphemisms like “choice” and “women’s health.” Lately, they’ve added contraception to the mix to weave their haunting tale of a Republican “war on women.” …

There is already a federal subsidy providing free contraceptives for the poor. In 2010, we spent $2.37 billion for family-planning services. It’s the Democrats’ great innovation to force middle-class women to subsidize contraceptive purchases by wealthy women.

Republican candidates who are accused of being against birth control because they oppose Obamacare should enjoy explaining that declining to subsidize something is not equivalent to opposing it. I decline to subsidize gun purchases by all American males. Does that make me anti-man? Anti-gun? I decline to subsidize gym memberships for all teenagers. Does that make me pro-obesity? I decline to subsidize farmers – oh wait, we already do that, but I wish I could refuse. And the same goes for our subsidies of green energy companies, the NFL, big banks, transportation and thousands of other things.

Women voters are not an army of Sandra Flukes, flocking to the polls for their free diaphragms and limitless abortions, but they do flinch from extremists. It’s up to Republican candidates to illustrate who the real extremists are.

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