Romney Says Question on Contraception 'Silly'

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney tried to avoid answering a question about whether states should be able to ban contraceptives, insisting that they wouldn't want to anyway.

Romney seemed perplexed at George Stephanopoulos's relentless pursuit of the question and suggested that it was irrelevant. Contraception, he said to laughs, is working "just fine."

The question was about whether a state could ban contraception, noting privacy was the reason cited in the last century in a case that overturned Connecticut's ban on contraception.

The right to privacy also was cited by the Supreme Court when it ruled in favor of abortion rights.