As in years past, the GOP has enthusiastically reaffirmed its commitment to eliminating access to abortion by once more committing to an anti-choice “no exceptions” plank in the party platform.

The plank has actually been in the GOP platform over the course of many elections, including at the nominating convention of then-Governor George W. Bush. It was introduced by then-Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, who would later become Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary under Bush.

Pro-choice supporters in Wisconsin aren’t letting the double standard go unnoticed, especially after Thompson told Missouri Rep. Todd Akin to remove himself from that state’s senate race in the wake of comments about “legitimate.”

“Next week, Tommy Thompson will attend the GOP convention, where they will endorse an anti-choice platform almost identical to the one he wrote in 2000, and Tommy is going to face questions over whether or not he still supports his original position that abortion should be banned with no exceptions,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Executive Director Maggie Brickerman said Wednesday. “It is not enough for Secretary Thompson to distance himself from Todd Akin’s political future. For the sake of Wisconsin’s women, he must also distance himself from the extreme views he helped write into the Republican Party’s platform and which exist to this day.”

Thompson called on Akin to “step aside” after making the no-exceptions abortion ban a focus of the 2012 race. How does Thompson reconcile that with his own role in the same policy agenda a decade ago?