Sen. Ted Cruz.
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

When asked by an audience member to clarify his stance on making contraception available for women, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) launched into a four-minute speech on Monday that extolled the ubiquitousness of condoms.

"Anyone who wants contraceptives can access them," he said during the campaign stop in Bettendorf, Iowa. As a lifelong conservative, Cruz said, he "never met anybody, any conservative who wants to ban contraceptives. Last I checked, we don't have a rubber shortage in America. Like look, when I was in college, we had a machine in the bathroom. You put 50 cents in — and voila!"

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.