Posted on 12/27/2007 3:28:02 PM PST by big'ol_freeper
In an interview with CBS News' Katie Couric last week, GOP Presidential contender Mitt Romney was asked "What's the biggest mistake you've ever made?" Interestingly, he responded that his practice of the popular stand on abortion - 'personally opposed, but . . .' was his biggest mistake. However, in the same interview he noted he still supports destructive research on embryonic stage humans.
"I think from the political perspective, the biggest mistake I made was believing that my personal disagreement with abortion and my view that abortion was wrong, that somehow I could accommodate my personal view that abortion was wrong with a public view that other people should be able to make up their own mind, and the government wouldn't play a role," Romney replied.
After some time Couric pursued the matter further asking, "You said you have personal views toward abortion but felt that in the public arena, another position could exist. What is wrong with that? What's wrong with having a personal view and feeling that it's the right of individuals to make these difficult choices?"
Romney replied: "Well, what I recognized is that in a civilized society that there has to be a respect for the sanctity of life - that if you put that aside, if you say, "We're gonna start creating life and then destroying it," you're, in effect, playing God. And I think a civilized society has certain rules of conduct that it live by and one of those is to respect the sanctity of life. Another is respect in the sanctity of marriage. And...so when...I was faced with not a theoretical question of, "What do you think about abortion?" but, instead, the reality of being a governor who would sign a bill that would create life and destroy it-this was an embryonic cloning bill--I said, "I simply cannot become party to something where life would be created and then destroyed." And that made the decision for me that it was impossible to have a strong position personally opposing abortion and, at the same time, to say that we're going to have laws which permitted and permit the destruction of life throughout our society."
However in what would be seen by many as a contradiction, Romney told Couric he supported embryonic stem cell research.
Couric asked: "So what kind of embryos - embryos that are created for procreation and then would be discarded? Are those the ones that you feel are perfectly fine from which to cull cells for stem cell research?"
Romney replied: "Yes, those embryos that are referred to commonly as surplus embryos from in-vitro fertilization. Those embryos, I hope, could be available for adoption for people who would like to adopt embryos. But if a parent decides they would want to donate one of those embryos for purposes of research, in my view, that's acceptable. It should not be made against the law."
Romney noted that he would not permit public monies to pay for such research. "I wouldn't finance that with government money because it represents a moral challenge for a lot of people and I think we're better investing in places where the prospects are much better," he said.
Oh, stop being so cynical, JRoche. (Just wait til Romney becomes a perfect candidate for godhood, LDS say...you'll see)
Kimball, LDS prophet, said perfection is possible for men-becoming-gods.
LOL
Our politicizing on these issues guarantees that they will never get resolved. How many women do you think vote democrat just on the abortion issue alone?
Sorry, but its a very simple issue. Purposeful destruction of a human embryo is murder. Murder is wrong. To quote Pope John Paul II on the Culture of Death, specifically abortion: "No law, no act, no circumstance can make licit that which is intrinsically illicit."  U.S. Army Retired |
Surprise!
On the other hand, if you take a look at the "government wouldn't play a role" statement, phrase, you find that he simply never got involved in any serious discussions of abortion, it's morality or absence of morality, and what part the government DOES play in it.
All of us on the RTL side of the debate know very well that abortion has not been privatized and the government plays a very powerful part in the business.
It would not, after all, exist for a second once it was privatized and government protection removed. At the moment the government holds a gun to the head of each and every right thinking RTL person in America.
If Romney really did want the government out of the abortion business, he would have been on our side of the issue.
So, how can I judge what he said against the standard of his written policy positions? Well, they are less slippery, and less incisive than this, but he's pretty slippery here, and if Katie "she that bleets" Couric were able to think about it a sec she'd understood what he said about getting government out of the abortion business and ran screaming from the stage lest she be throttled on the spot.
So much for that interview ~ again, a passle of soundbytes signifying nothing.
So why did somebody drag Katie Couric into Free Republic? I thought South Park took care of her once and for all.
| I'm not interested in bargaining away the lives of other people, in this case pre-born persons, for the expedience of having more women vote for Republicans. U.S. Army Retired |
So, Lion, is this your stance: "When the leaders speak the thinking has been done?"
"When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan--it is God's Plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give directions, it should mark the end of controversy, God works in no other way. To think otherwise, without immediate repentance, may cost one his faith, may destroy his testimony, and leave him a stranger to the kingdom of God."
Ward Teachers Message, Deseret News, Church Section p. 5, May 26, 1945
"Always keep your eye on the President of the church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, even if it is wrong, and you do it, the lord will bless you for it but you don't need to worry. The lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray." LDS President Marion G. Romney (of the first presidency), quoting LDS President (and prophet) Heber J. Grant "Conference Report" Oct. 1960 p. 78
You distorted my question. We are not winning the hearts of the women on this issue. We are allowing the democrats to. We need to bring them over to our side. Your rhetoric isn/t going to get the job done.
By your logic, we will all now have to become experts in every facet, every field of life. We can’t rely on our leaders to even meet with foreign dignataries and make the proper decisions.
Typical of just about any politician.
However, there's a third side. Let's say science discovers a way to take ADULT stem cells and reprogram so they do not create an immune reaction, and they go about looking for the very best ADULT stem cells so they can inject them into other people who need them.
While performing their search they discover that 1/10 of 1% of the human population have vastly superior stem cells, but not enough to meet the needs of the many who need new ones.
The only way to supply enough of them is to take the adults with those stem cells, flense them, and decant ALL their stemcells for world distribution.
Would Mitt volunteer to be flensed and decanted should it come to that?
(Note: recent discoveries with adult skin cells suggest we are more than half way to the scenario I envision).
| Why would I want women who believe in murdering pre-born persons on my side. Just by the nature of their beliefs they are not on my side. If by bringing them over to our side you mean changing their minds, how do you propose doing that outside of discussion, debate, and stating positions...read that how do you propose doing that outside of the political process. I'm afraid you have created quite the circular argument. U.S. Army Retired |
Somehow I've never really gotten the idea that the pros want abortion to be a truly private matter.
Why would we explain it away? None of the major candidates are proposing a ban on all embryonic stem cell research.
Romney opposes using tax dollars to fund any embryonic research. That’s the position of President Bush, a position we have all applauded in the past, and that position BARELY survives a veto.
Many of our pro-life republicans actually voted to support FUNDING of embryonic stem cell research. Few if any are supporting BANNING such research if it is privately funded, and such a ban has absolutely NO CHANCE of passing.
Those who argued that Thompson was right not to support HLA because you couldn’t get it passed — we have a better chance passing HLA than we would have passing a ban on embryonic stem cell research.
For the record, if you oppose embryonic stem cell research, you should also oppose in-vitro fertilization, since it by it’s nature creates embryos that will then be prohibited from continuing their life. I guess it’s 1% worse to use them in research than it is to freeze them until they die and then discard them, but the point is if you really believe an embryo is itself a human life worthy of protection, you can’t support them being frozen and discarded.
Unless, as someone inaptly tried to state here, you think parents should be allowed to freeze and discard their children.
I can tell we’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel when Mitt opponents are reduced to complaining that he isn’t more pro-life than the most avid 1% of the pro-life movement.
For the record, in the universe of variation in the pro-life movement, allowing embryonic research is an argument far more to the conservative site than the argument against allowing abortion for rape and incest.
But both Romney and Fred Thompson think you should ALLOW abortions for rape and incest. And yet Fred Thompson got the endorsement of the NRLC.
Believe me, if you can be pro-life and support killing children because of the sins of their father, you can certainly be pro-life and support the use of frozen discarded embryos for research.
Do you realise that the 2001 Bush proposal itself gave FEDERAL dollars to experiment on embryos, in the argument that since those embryos had already been destroyed and made non-viable before we got there, it was OK to experiment on them.
That argument would be like saying we won’t experiment on live 5-year-olds, but if someone kills them first, and drops them on our doorstep, we might as well use them for experiments.
In other words, you can make anything sound bad. There’s only one really pure pro-life position, and none of our candidates are there. I know I’m not there.
Fred Thompson supports killing babies if their father is a rapist. Yet he’s pro-life enough for us.
An absurd question.
...By your logic, we will all now have to become experts in every facet, every field of life. We can’t rely on our leaders to even meet with foreign dignataries and make the proper decisions.
We are not talking about a position on an an aid package for an obscure nation in Africa or how we will negotiate a trade deal with Vietnam. We are talking about the issue of human life.
I respectfully submit to you that is not a good thing to allow one man to define your opinion on what is life and what is not. Not a minister, certainly not a Presidential candidate. These are the things we must decide for ourselves and reconcile with our relationship with God. They help to define us and no one person should be given the authority to choose for us.
SO I presume you want to ban the use of all embryos.
But your candidate has not proposed banning all embryonic research. He opposes government funding, just like Romney does, but has NEVER pushed for a ban as Senator, and is not pushing for a ban as President.
So his position on the legality of this research is identical to Romney’s — no funding, no banning.
But I’m certain you’ll still be voting for your candidate, and will defend him as a conservative, just as I will still support my candidate and defend him as a conservative.
This isn’t as bad as the fact that both our candidates support abortion in the case of rape and incest. But you go with the candidates you have. If I had a candidate who supported killing babies because their father was the brother of their mother, or because their father used alcohol to get his mother’s permission for sex, I wouldn’t be calling another candidate liberal and unfit for president because he won’t ban the private use of discarded embryos in research, something my candidate won’t do either.
But I don’t expect consistancy or logic to make any difference here.
I'm pretty sure you wouldn't volunteer for flensing and decanting so we could make use of your stem cells ~ so we'd have to make it mandatory.
I think we've got the votes for that. Don't you?!
Go here to get some facts on Romney’s record:
Abortion and Sanctity of Life
http://www.freerepublic.com/~unmarkedpackage/#abortion
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