Posted on 10/20/2011 6:43:41 AM PDT by dangus
I agree. Perry and Romney aren’t any better, but I agree.
The “all abortion” thing is a canard meant to confuse the issue. Most everybody knows the question was about rape and incest.
What is confusing is Cain’s answers. I’m willing to believe that Cain was only talking about rape and incest, and while I oppose abortion in all cases, and would support a candidate who did, I don’t withhold my support from politicians who say they will allow rape/incest exceptions, even though they don’t make sense.
I wish they wouldn’t use the words about it not being government’s business. It is clearly government’s business, and from a government perspective, the ability to ban an abortion is unrelated to the manner in which the woman got pregnant.
If the government has the right to ban abortion, they can do so in cases of rape and incest. Even if you think abortion SHOULD be legal in those cases, you would argue that on the merits, NOT on the absurd notion that HOW the baby was conceived effects the right of the state to regulate or prohibit the procedure.
Worse, it feeds into the pro-abortion lie that pro-lifers really just want to punish women for having sex. Because in the end, a rape/incest exception is like saying “we’ll let those women have abortions, because it’s not their fault they got pregnant”.
Which makes no sense if the reason for banning abortion is that human life is sacred and no other human has the right to arbitrarily end the life of another human being.
“He says it’s a family’s decision to make, and not government’s. How is that not “pro choice”?”
It’s not pro-choice unless the decision he was talking about was whether or not to have an abortion. That’s not the decision that was being discussed.
“His position is similar to many liberal Democrats who say -— I personally oppose abortion, but I have no right to tell a woman she can’t have an abortion.”
No, it’s not, but if you keep posting his answer to a question that isn’t about abortion, maybe you can fool some people into thinking it is, eh?
They’d have to be pretty slow to miss the fact that what he is talking about is statistically rare, meaning it can’t be abortion, but maybe you will find a few suckers.
Geez, I didn’t think the guy was dumb enough to make the same mistake twice. This must be intentional choice of words, and if that is the case, seems to me he’s obfuscating instead of confused himself.
I had no idea he had done this kind of thing TWICE. I wouldn’t trust him on abortion now. Period.
“If so, he was not clear about it.”
The question that he is answering is specifically about having to raising a child conceived by rape or incest. Heck, he even says what he is talking about is statistically rare, so there is no way he can be talking about abortion, or at least, abortion in general.
Read the Stossel interview in Post 74. Cain seems to have the same position on abortion as Bill Clinton (i.e. personally opposed, but unwilling to outlaw it).
Well, actually he said, “bring up that baby as her own” which sounds much more like “raise” her baby than a suggestion that she should abort the baby.
In any case, Herman Cain needs to explain emphatically what his beliefs are on the matter.
That Stossel interview is a mess. Like Stossel, I’m not sure what Cain was trying to say, but he doesn’t seem to be taking the Clinton position, since he says “No, abortion should not be legal”. Still, his whole “that’s not the government’s decision” thing needs to be clarified, because if he doesn’t think abortions should be legal, then what the heck is he talking about?
Just saw this on Twitter:
-THEHermanCain Herman Cain
I’m 100% pro-life. End of story.-
Now, is he willing to act on these convictions or is he just 100% PERSONALLY pro-life? I wish I knew!
It’s not a canard. Not everyone knows what you say they know, because there’s a whole other thread where there’s an article trying to make people think that Cain is unabashedly pro-choice for all abortions.
It is interesting that Cain came out to put this fire out, and all he said was “I’m 100% pro-life”, without actually telling us what laws he would support, which is the problem.
And you are right, I shouldn’t make sweeping generalizations about what other people know. I just see that the issue of whether he would actually support a law making abortion illegal, and what exceptions he would allow, is the one where the real question is, and the argument over whether he supports abortion is a distraction.
I shouldn’t fault people for trying to squelch that argument though, since it is clearly false.
It would be so easy for Cain to say “I will support a law that bans abortion even in the case of rape and incest.” Or to say “I support a federal law banning abortion, but not in the case of rape or incest”. Or “I support state laws that ban abortion in all cases, but think it is wrong to have a federal law”. Or “I support state laws banning abortion, but I think the states should leave exceptions for rape and incest”.
Or if he has a different view, he could express it.
It is absurd that we are having multiple threads of arguments parsing words in an interrview, and picking over other interviews, to figure out what his position is. He’s a candidate for the Presidency, and he is on talk shows every day. Can’t one of them just ask him? I was hoping Hanitty would pin him down on this.
Anyway, until I here in clearly articulate his position on the law, I am going to assume that he would support a rape and incest exception in a federal law banning abortion. That won’t stop me from voting for him — most politicians think this is a political reality, and since we are years from being able to ban abortion in any case, it makes little difference so long as he’ll appoint judges that will overturn Roe.
Of course, we have no idea what kind of judges he’ll pick, or how he’ll pick them. I mean, he SAYS he’d pick judges like Clarence Thomas (not sure he didn’t pick Roberts, Alito, or Scalia, but they are all good on this issue). But so does Romney, and we know he didn’t do so well in his appointments. Perry is the only candidate who has anything close to a decent record of appointing conservative judges, not saying his record is great, but remember it’s a crap shoot — Reagan was 1.5 for 3, Bush was 1 for 2. W Bush was actually 2 for 2.
And I was indicating that killing the baby who is the result of a rape is comparable to killing the woman who is raped instead of the rapist. Both cases punishing an innocent victim, instead of the perpetrator.
I respect you trying to sort through the confusion here, and I agree that Cain needs to come out now and put out this fire, regardless of how it started. It looks like he is already out there trying to do that.
As for the whole “would you support this law” stuff, I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. Cain seems to be trying to talk principles and broader rhetoric rather than getting pinned down on detailed policy stances right now. I’m sure he’ll have to get down to “brass tacks”, but maybe he’s trying to save it for the general, or maybe there is another reason, I don’t know.
My apologies.
No problem. Written communication is tricky.
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