Herman Cain changes his mind on abortion, as expected
By Maura HehirOctober 21st, 2011, 2:30 pmComments (34)
Of course it was too good (or weird) to be true! After a series of interviews on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN wherein Herman Cain completely contradicted the views of the rest of his party on abortion, he took it all back.
Last night, he told Piers Morgan that abortion, "ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family." On Meet the Press, he maintained that he believed in "life after conception," but when he was asked if abortion was acceptable if the life of the mother was at risk, he insisted, "That family is going to have to make that decision." He even said on FOX News that if a woman is raped, having an abortion is "her choice, that is not government's choice."
Sounds a lot like a pro-choicer's words to me. But in an act of defiance, Cain found a serious media platform on which he could finally set the record straight. He went to Twitter.
Still doesn't explain why so much of what he says decidedly isn't pro-life. So he released a statement as well!
"Yesterday in an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN, I was asked questions about abortion policy and the role of the President.
I understood the thrust of the question to ask whether that I, as president, would simply “order” people to not seek an abortion.
My answer was focused on the role of the President. The President has no constitutional authority to order any such action by anyone. That was the point I was trying to convey.
As to my political policy view on abortion, I am 100% pro-life. End of story.
I will appoint judges who understand the original intent of the Constitution. Judges who are committed to the rule of law know that the Constitution contains no right to take the life of unborn children.
I will oppose government funding of abortion. I will veto any legislation that contains funds for Planned Parenthood. I will do everything that a President can do, consistent with his constitutional role, to advance the culture of life."
Seems like old Herm doesn't really know what he thinks. Why would he assume he was being asked whether he, as president, would personally order people to not have abortions? Why would that ever happen? And for what reason would he constantly reiterate that abortion is "not the government's choice," when he is happy to veto funds for Planned Parenthood? As if we needed more reasons to not ever elect this dude. I'm sure he'll be hopping on the "you can get pap smears at Walgreens!" crazywagon soon.
Commentarium (34 Comments)
This guy's awesome!
The morally ambivalent always have more fun?
Anyone want some pizza?
I don't know if he is in favor of the death penalty, but you can't be '100% pro-life' and pro-death penalty.
Pretty simple, really: The baby being killed is not guilty of anything. The convict being killed, presumably, is.
That being said, I am pro-life and anti-death penalty but there is really no contradiction.
Stupid liberals, Trix are for kids!
The Abortion = Death Penalty argument is old and tired. Get off of it already.
Plus, the death penalty in undoubtedly a good thing. If someone went and murdered Barack, Michelle, Sasha and Malia Obama, they deserve more than life in jail (some would argue a medal, but I think that the death penalty is appropriate).
failed trolling on this one...
Wasn't me but thanks for playing, paranoid troll. We are all out to get you.
are only out to get yourself, that's why it's failed trolling.
@NotChristian - Was you comment meant to be serious or just an attempt to stiffle debate?
He thinks whatever you want him to think, so vote for him!
Finally! A true puppet. I was ready to write in a vote for Howdy Doody.
"And for what reason would he constantly reiterate that abortion is "not the government's choice," when he is happy to veto funds for Planned Parenthood?"
The government allowing something is not the same thing as the government paying for it. That's how.
My biggest problem with pro-life is the bureaucracy involving the acknowledgment of a fetus as a baby- I mean. is he a tax break from the moment of conception? is a miscarriage actually a manslaughter? a fetus is actually alive when it can sustain itself, till then, he's just a very sentimental parasite.
And at what age can a human sustain itself? If that's your criteria for when life begins, then a person should legally be able to terminate a 2 year old.
He likely has no idea, besides the conservative idea, what Planned Parenthood does and how its govt funds don't fund abortions. But being an anti-govt spending guy, he would veto just about anything that funded anything besides the military.
But what an idiot. The idea that as President he could come to decide whether some woman's abortion was OK is weird. That's just not a thing, his position is still not an actual one. He wants to tout govt out of our business while at the same time support govt legislation against a woman's choice to abort an embryo, gamete, fetus, etc inside her body. He wants it both ways as most conservative politicians do, he's just not as polished about it.
9-9-9, 9-9-9, 9-9-9!
How about this: No Federal government spending on abortion and push the question to the states? That's where it belongs, imo. I'm tired of the residents of communities, counties and states sending tax money to the Federal government so that it can be returned to communities, counties and states. Amazingly inefficient and it exerts a corrupting influence as the money passes through multiple hands.
Oh yeah...get on the Cain stain.
@Publius: C'mon, you can usually do better than that. The fedear government is responsible for things that states can't handle on their own -- the interstate highway system for one example, and other national defense matters. The federal government is the one that awards contracts for airplanes, tanks, cruise missles, which have to be built somewhere. They need to be paid for with federal tax dollars directed to plants and workers located in some state, some community. I don't disagree about the corrupting effects of money (I could use defense spending again for that example), but the answer is not abandoning a federal system of government, including taxing and spending.
@profrobert: The projects you describe - interstate highways and defense - are appropriately Federal matters as they relate to the defense of the Nation and interstate commerce. I was not describing the acquisition of such materiel; of course the individual items are produced on the local (hopefully domestic) level.
The latest stimulus/job/slush fund bill is $35B (more or less) for teachers, police officers, etc. Why does the Federal government collect this type of tax revenue just to return it to the local governments that should be paying for these services themselves? And please don't say the locals can't pay for it, this is a zero sum game; it's being taken from the same people and being (probably disproportionally) returned to the same people.
It's intellectually dishonest to say, 1. The Federal government shouldn't provide/pay for anything - the caricatured right wing view - just as it is to say, 2. Because the Federal government appropriately pays for some things - national defense, the interstate road system - it should pay for anything it deems in its best interest. The reality is that every representative (House or Senate) tries to being home more to his/her district than goes out. That is, of course, impossible without runaway deficit spending. And that's where we find ourselves.
The answer is a Balanced Budget Amendment that stops running up the debt for our children to suffer with and a huge retraction in the scope of the Federal government. Let's preclude the "tax the super wealthy" argument, a priori: Confiscating 100% of the income of those who make over $10M/yr (that includes the Buffett and Gates families you've referenced in the past) would have resulted in approximately $220B of additional revenue last year which would have reduced the deficit (not the debt!) by about 15%. And keep in mind that if you start doing something so rash, those people are going to either find ways to defer that income or, more likely, not work real hard just to turn all marginal income to the government.
@comma: How about "live outside the womb"? Before 22 weeks, science can't keep a human fetus/child alive. That's the approach taken in Roe v. Wade. What will be interesting is when science gets to the point where it can grow a fetus to maturity in a jar (as it were). At that point, I wonder if the law would have to require the removal of the zygote in a way that it can be grown to maturity. But that's a question for 50-100 years from now.
The reality is that the abortion debate doesn't really pertain to the legality of abortion; there's no serious attempt to outlaw abortion. Instead, it's an abortion funding question. The question of funding abortions is very much in play. How about allowing individual states to determine if state funds can be used to pay for abortions? This is not appropriately a Federal matter.
Cain is just another incompetent self-promoter with his eye on his personal income instead of the White House. The Republicans are obviously incapable of nominating a capable candidate. Obama 2012.
How is Cain doing this for his personal income? It's an interesting smear but I don't see even the hint of truth in it.
You might want to look into that for starters, Publius.
contributions, no less.
Do you truly think someone would put himself and his family through this for a book contract? I can't imagine that's the case.
Personal income and campaign contributions are not the same unless you're suggesting Cain plans to violate Federal law.
nothing to do with a getting a book "contract". It's about rigging a system to make your book rank higher on the selling lists while pocketing political donations:
"Federal Election Commission filings show that the GOP candidate Herman Cain has used over $100,000 of donor's money to buy copies of his own book that his company profits from."
Obama is an incompetent self-promoter as well, ALL major-party politicians are. (And IMO Mr. O is particularly ill-suited for the reality of what the POTUS job entails, just as Cain clearly is.) It's a prerequisite for the job, and instead of taking one side or another we should be rebelling (or revolting) against the two-party system in its entirety.
No, the abortion debate is not about funding, and it's also not about killing or not killing (as an abortion at any stage is most certainly killing *something*, that is a medical fact not open to interpretation). The actual debate is about whether it's moral to allow the killing of said things at all, or whether it's OK to kill certain (less developed, immature) things and not others.
MR. Cain IS the MAN for the WHITE HOUSE YEAH HE shows he has power!! china Or the C.E.O.s Wont dare tell MR. Cain We dont have too CAIN is OUR PRESIDENT
Economies are in dire starits, but I can count on this!
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Now you say something