Posted on 10/21/2007 8:10:14 AM PDT by dano1
Jamie Crawford at CNN’s Political Ticker blog reports this about Mike Huckabee:
“Sometimes we talk about why we’re importing so many people in our workforce,” the former Arkansas governor said. “It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973.”
The language is a little imprecise - what Huckabee meant is that in each of the last 32 years more than 1 million abortions have been carried out in America - and the numbers are a little low - the average number of abortions performed since Roe v. Wade is about 1.4 million per year - but his point is clear: abortion is the American holocaust.
(This is not only true of America, of course. Europe’s abortion rate is far higher than ours.)
First I must congratulate Huckabee for standing his ground on this issue. Politically this is not a move that is going to get him any closer to the White House. A cynic might see this as positioning for the vice-presidency. However, I think that it is more likely that Huckabee simply believes this is the correct interpretation of the data.
Personally I agree with him. Abortion is, in the final analysis, after all the shouting and rationalizing are done with, the ultimate illustration of the strong(er) crushing the life out of the helpless.
Does that mean abortion should be illegal? No. It should be limited, as all of our actions are constrained by the codified morality that is the law, but not eliminated.
Americans do mean, heartless things with startling regularity considering that we know better. Abortion is perhaps chief among them; yet the nature of a democratic society demands that couples have the right to control their destiny for right or wrong. A reasonable standard should be set after which abortion should be forbidden, as has been done in Europe, and that should be the end of the matter.
That will undoubtedly not happen. Reading through the comments gives one a fairly good sampling of the views of Americans, for better and worse.
(I assume that CNN filters its comments to remove the repulsive. Historically such on-line debates have been among the filthiest on the Net. Therefore, it would be a mistake to think that the extreme positions are represented at CNN’s site.)
Theme 1:
Once again, someone without a uterus and/or the possible chance of becoming pregnant through rape or incest, takes their fundamentalist beliefs and wants to force feed the rest of the nation their views. These are the real monsters!
Statistically the percent of abortions performed for reasons of rape or incest is < 1%. This is not a rational argument. Is Mike Huckabee a monster? Hardly.
Theme 2:
Mike Huckabee likening abortion to the Holocaust is a slap in the face to every human soul who perished under Hitler.
Is it? 6 million Jewish people were exterminated by little Adolph. But the number of abortions performed world-wide dwarfs that number in a single year. Acknowledging that fact is not disrespectful to the Nazis’ victims.
Theme 3:
are the deaths of US soldiers and thousands of Iraqi civilians in an illegal and unjust war also not a Holocaust.
Again, the numbers don’t add up, do they? With regard to U.S. soldiers, the number of abortions performed in the U.S. in a single day is quite close to the total number of U.S. soldiers killed to-date in Iraq. One day. If we expand our calculation to include an (inflated) estimate of 100,000 Iraqi dead and dismiss the fact that most were killed by other Iraqis we still need only wait one month for the U.S. abortion count to outstrip the entire number of war dead.
Theme 4:
The most important thing we need to establish in this country is a true separation of church and state, and we’re definitely not going to get it with Huckabee. If your reasoning for making a new law or amending the constitution is based on religious grounds then it should be immediately dismissed.
That’s what’s most important? Not defending our borders? Not poverty in America? Not our failing education system? Not race and integration issues? Not an aggressive, insidious form of Islam that threatens freedom everywhere it exists? A bit of perspective would help, I think.
Theme 5:
a woman surely has a right to decide what to do with her body
Not necessarily. While generally true, this statement fails to consider the baby’s right to live after its point of viability and its necessarily feeling pain as a result of being aborted.
This notion also dismisses the rights of the father as if they do not exist. In a just system, however, a woman would not be allowed to abort a child when her partner is willing to compensate her for costs and inconvenience during pregnancy and assumes all responsibility for the child thereafter.
Granted, that situation may be rare these days. Nevertheless it should be represented in the debate.
Theme 6:
I suppose when a man is able to conceive a child, carry it for nine months, deliver it, nurture it, and experience the personal sacrifice of a woman and mother, then and ONLY THEN will his opinion have any credibility. Since it takes two to conceive, maybe we should look at the other side of the coin and insist that if a woman must experience an unwanted pregnancy, then perhaps the man who impregnated her should be castrated.
Another over-estimation of the importance of the female gender and the rights that it engenders. Castration would be equivalent to performing forced hysterectomies on women who have abortions. I haven’t seen that idea anywhere, at least in this country. Ridiculous.
But there is a distorted reflection of a good idea in there, namely that men who fail to live up to the responsibilities of fatherhood should not be allowed to continue to procreate. That’s more reasonable, but unlikely to become a national policy.
—
Given the tenor of the discussion here and other places it seems unlikely that the U.S. will come to any sort of final conclusion to the issue of abortion any time soon.
I admire Mike Huckabee’s beliefs and willingness to stick to them regardless of the criticism they will bring down on him. I agree whole-heartedly that abortion is a plague on western civilization and I think it will ultimately prove to be our downfall because of higher birth rates in other, less-developed parts of the world.
Yet I am not willing to attempt to dictate to others on the issue. Ultimately we have to be free to pursue life on our own terms, whatever those might be, respecting only the spirit of the law.
Just as freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion, the pursuit of happiness does not mean that we shall be happy with every law of the land. It’s time more people accepted that.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
LITTLE ROCK, AR – Former AR Governor and Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee proved today that he is “favorite son of conservative voters,” placing first place in a “Values Voter” Straw Poll among attendees of the Family Research Council’s Summit in Washington, D.C.
Huckabee was the No. 1 favorite among the 952 attendees the summit and voted in person, with 51 percent of the vote – defeating rival Mitt Romney who received just 10 percent of the vote.
The results are as follows:
1.) Mike Huckabee - 488 - 51.26%
2.) Mitt Romney – 99 – 10.40%
3.) Fred Thompson – 77 – 8.09%
4.) Tom Tancredo – 65 – 6.83%
“Today’s victory in the on-site contest is yet another indicator that I am the top choice of voters in America who are looking for a truly consistent, conservative candidate with a proven record of results and the vision to lead America forward,” said Huckabee.
Huckabee, who had 11 standing ovations during a rousing speech today before an enthusiastic audience, espoused his “non-negotiable” priorities for America – “freedom, faith and family.” After the speech, he finished just 30 votes behind Mitt Romney in a straw poll which included online polling.
Wow!! Huckabee nailed it!!!
Great tag line!
We like Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson in that order.
What’s ironic is that many liberal Jews read the story of Moses every single year, about the Pharoah’s order to kill every male child, but blithely continue giving money to NARAL, even without a threat from a ruthless evil tyrant.
Thank you. ;0)
It’s too bad that no one’s ever heard of Duncan Hunter.
The only thing I would add is that it’s a world holocaust as well.
Don't include me in that "we". Personally I think the nation is tired of both Texas and Arkansas politicians. It's been Texas, Texas, Arkansas, Arkansas, Texas, California, California in the White House. Look what the States of Texas and Arkansas have brought use over the last twenty years. BTW...I see Hillary as an Arkansas democrat.
Being the monster and a male that I am, for I have no chance of having a baby by any means. I cannot for the life of me understand why that fact means I cannot make a moral judgment call on ripping a live human being out of a womb is wrong or not. There is difference between killing a baby at 32 weeks in the womb and killing it right after birth ? I see none.
It also really rubs me wrong that believing life in the womb is innocent and should be protected makes me a fundamentalist. By that standard almost all of America were fundamentalist before the modern era.
As for force feeding the nation on my beliefs, that is exactly what liberals did in Roe V Wade did, it took the abortion laws off all 50 states and tossed them to force abortion on the nation. The states should be the one to decide their abortion laws.
....and I am the real monster!!!
I can’t understand this, he appears to be a conservative and best qualified why aren’t we hearing more from him?
It does seem odd that so far at least Duncan Hunter hasn't gained more traction.
The ‘we’ is my husband and our voting age family members.
The US Abortion Holocaust is almost as bad as the Communist one - 100 million in the last century.
Is it a corrolary that humanity must kill?
Unlike other "top tier" Republicans, he didn't used to be much of a "household name" at the national level. However he is steadily moving up in the polls as more people get to know him.
Huckabee is also for amnesty, illegal aliens, and big government nanny state. Nobody who is for amnesty is a conservative. Snappy slogans do not impress me. Abortion occurs not just in America but higher rates occur in other countries.
Missing way too often in all these arguments is the role of the providers, especially the doctor. We have set up a society where a doctor and associates now becomes the active partners in the murder of the unborn.
Yes, I have read all those arguments ad infinitum. It's a zygote, blob of tissue, not human until it can live and breathe on its own outside the womb, blah blah, but for the grace of God or chance, they are condemning their own lives. Women can't do anything they want to their bodies; i.e., prostitution, suicide and cutting or otherwise mutilating themselves, won't go into some of the now legal mutilations of one's body if one so chooses.
Are those who would prohibit abortions of convenience really monsters or their brothers'/sisters' keepers? It would be hard to look someone in the eye, see the fear, anguish and tears over an unwanted pregnancy and tell them they can't get a legal abortion. Some of us, without seeking it out, have had look them in the eyes, sometimes for years, the haunting, can't get past it (not all), and see the the toll on their mental health, some turn to alcohol and drugs to kill the pain and guilt (if they weren't already into it). Is that any better for society?
Liberals have to deal with cases like this all the time, especially therapists. Does it change their outlook? Seems not. The unholy grail of safe and legal abortion must be upheld at all cost and rationalizations in their own psyches.
It is useless to argue with them.
DH is a good guy, and a good conservative, but at this late date if he hasn’t gone anywhere he isn’t going anywhere. He’s been on the political scene for a long time. During all that time, what statewide races has he won?
Whatever the reason for his lack of traction, now and in the past, it’s irrelevant at this juncture.
DH has no traction because he has no traction, and all the wishing and hoping in the world is not going to change that fact before the primaries begin.
The MSM loves the Huckster , which alone gives me great pause .
I think they know they can paint him in any light they want , and that he’d be easy for Hillary to beat .
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