Posted on 06/17/2007 8:05:34 PM PDT by monomaniac
Kansas City, MO (LifeNews.com) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney led off a GOP presidential forum the National Right To Life Committee held on Friday at its national convention. He told the more than a thousand convention-goers that he shares their strong opposition to abortion even though he only arrived at a pro-life position recently.
"I am humbled to be standing among the many who have toiled for the pro-life movement for so long, when I arrived at this place of principle only a few years ago, he told the crowd.
He said he appreciated the "decades of dedication and the effective advocacy" of pro-life advocates, saying "I know that it is not time but conviction that unites us."
Romney said he was a testament to the educational work of the pro-life movement and how it has persuaded millions of the value of human life.
"I proudly follow a long line of converts George Herbert Walker Bush, Henry Hyde, and Ronald Reagan to name a few, the former Massachusetts governor said. "I am evidence that your work, that your relentless campaign to promote the sanctity of human life, bears fruit.
Romney echoed his past comments about how the media views politicians who shift on the issue of abortion -- applauding those who become pro-abortion and castigating those who move to the pro-life side of the debate.
"Consider the double standard at work here, by the way. When a pro-life figure changes to pro-abortion, they get praised for their courage. But when someone becomes pro-life, the pundits go into high dudgeon.
The GOP candidate said he would make the same pledge with pro-life people should he head o the White House that he made with pr-life advocates when he served as governor.
"Anyone here from the pro-life community in Massachusetts knows they were always welcome in my office when I was Governor. Together we worked arm in arm, he explained. "I can promise you this you will be welcomed, and we will work together, if I'm fortunate enough to be elected President.
Romney reiterated the story of how he became pro-life by confronting the issues of human cloning an embryonic stem cell research.
I studied the subject in great depth. I have high hopes for stem cell research. But for me, a bright moral line is crossed when we create new life for the sole purpose of experimentation and destruction, Romney said. "It was during this battle that I began to focus a good deal more of my thinking on abortion.
When I first ran for office, while I was always personally opposed to abortion, I considered whether this should be a private decision or whether it should be a societal and government decision. I concluded that I would support the law as it was in place effectively, the pro-choice position, Romney added. "And I was wrong.
"What became clear during the cloning debate is how the harsh logic of an absolute right to abortion had cheapened the value of human life to the point that rational people saw a human embryo as nothing more than mere research material to be used, and then destroyed, Romney explained.
After that conversion experience, Romney said he consistently made pro-life decisions as governor from that point forward.
"And so, every time I faced a decision as Governor that related to life, I came down on the side of life, he said. "I fought to ban cloning. I fought to ban embryo farming. I fought to define life as beginning at conception rather than at the time of implantation.
"I fought for abstinence education in our schools. And I vetoed a so-called emergency contraception bill that gave young girls abortive drugs without prescription or parental consent.
Romney said he would build on that pro-life record in Washington -- especially by making sure taxpayers won't be forced to pay for abortion or embryonic stem cell research.
"The next president, especially if faced with a hostile Congress, will be confronted with many legislative tests, such as challenging the Hyde amendment and advancing cloning. You can be sure that I will be bringing my gubernatorial experience and my veto pen with me to Washington, he said.
The Republican presidential candidate said he shares the view of the pro-life movement that abortion is not a constitutional right and the courts shouldn't be promoting it.
Some say that it is 'OK' for the courts to impose their personal public policy preferences on society. I am not among them, he said. "Make no mistake: the claimed rights of abortion-on-demand are not in the Constitution.
Sandra Day O’Connor, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter ...
The untrue statements are not what he said, but what the MSM printed. Who the hell is Chad D. Baus and how does he know that romney only went hunting twice? And he obviously knows nothing about the NRA and its payment plans. Because that’s what the lifetime membership is, a payment plan. Instead of paying every year you pay only once and become a lifetime member. wow I guess romney must be the devil incarnate for choosing a convenient payment plan!
Didn’t Mitt admitt that he only went hunting twice? That’s fine that he joined the NRA, it just seems a bit odd that it makes him sound like he has been a member for a longtime, lifetime, when he actually just joined. And what about the article of Mitt being on the board of the Marriott hotel chain and the fact that it is selling hardcore porn in there rooms. I know he is not responsible for them doing that but I wouldn’t be associated with a corporation that is doing that kind of harm to customers. Was that an accurate article? If so, that’s not a small thing.
“Didnt Mitt admit that he only went hunting twice?”
No. He has a place in Utah and says he hunts there almost every year. People made fun because he said he only hunts rabbits but I guess they must have thought Utah is a place where you can find tigers and giraffes.
I don’t know the details about the Marriott hotel thing but that story seems kind of silly. This is one of the most respectable hotels in the world and to claim that they do something perverse just because they offer cable tv channels that include pay per view porn seems a bit extreme. Every cable company has porn channels. But this is all beside the point because this has nothing to do with mitt romney. He worked for Bain capital, not for the Marriott hotel. People seem to be running out of things to trash him with.
And he obviously knows nothing about the NRA and its payment plans.
If you're actually serious, the answers to your questions are at the site I linked to.
"Chad Baus is a member of the Fulton Co., Ohio, Republican Central Committee and the Buckeye Firearms Association Northwest Ohio chairman."
And this is how Chad Baus knows that Romney only went hunting twice:
"Indeed, on Wednesday, Romney's campaign admitted the first excursion into the field came at the young age of 15, and his second (surprise surprise) came last summer as he prepared to run for president."
He even trotted out some remembrances, recalling that in hunting with his cousins as a teenager, he struggled to kill rabbits with a single-shot .22-caliber rifle. When they lent him a semiautomatic, it got a lot easier, he said, drawing laughs from an appreciative crowd in Keene, N.H. The last time he went hunting, he said, was last year, when he shot quail in Georgia and knocked down quite a few birds.
So Ive been pretty much hunting all my life, he said again.
But on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported that Mr. Romney had in fact been hunting only twice: once during that summer when he was 15 and spending time at a relatives ranch in Idaho, and again on the occasion last year, a quail shoot at a fenced-in game preserve in Georgia with major donors to the Republican Governors Association.
On Thursday, with Mr. Romney facing reporters repeated questions about the A.P. account, his campaign was forced to address his hunting résumé. A campaign spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said Mr. Romney had gone hunting repeatedly during his teenage summer at the ranch. Mr. Romney has also shot small game on his Utah property, said Mr. Fehrnstrom, who added that he did not know how often.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/us/politics/06hunt.html?ex=1182312000&en=588229b7c3dae4b6&ei=5070
Notice that nobody knows where the "only hunted twice" story came from. It just happend to be the hitpiece on romney that the AP decided to run on that particular wednesday. They took the story he told about two instances when he went hunting and painted them as being the only times he went hunting ever. And now we have mr. Chad D. Baus writing opinion pieces based on a false story that was disproved months ago. And that's how it goes.
This an element of Romney's’s conversion from Liberal to RINO. “....arrived at a pro-life position recently” we know Mitt sometime between 2005 and your announcement you are a candidate for POTUS
Why do Mass. politicians all seem to be politically motivated flip-floppers?
thanks for that...we have to wade through so many lies just to get to some simple truths. The darkside is always busy weaving it’s lies through unwitting dupes. And I didn’t know that Mitt actually works for a company that’s related to Marriott hotels . More twists and turns!
Good point.
Are you saying you agree with Jackson's decision in that case? The court upheld the law and Jackson, the executive, refused to enforce it. He should have been impeached. His actions cost the lives of thousands of his allies.
The Cherokee at the time, above almost all other eastern Indian tribes in the US, were trying to make their society as compatible with the American society of the day as possible...and the reward was forced migration at the costs of thousands.
But that was not my point, my point was simple, a President can defy the judiciary . Jackson did and (whether we agree with it or not) he won out as regards his fight against the judiciary of his day.
Cool. That’s what I thought you were getting at.
BTW, I’m almost done with the book which includes this subject of The Cherokee removal. The peole quoted and included in the book are my ancestors. In reality, they were superior to their Georgian neighbors economically, religiously and intellectually, not that it did them a bit of good.
Here’s a snip:
“Perhaps Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were only tantalizing us when they encouraged us in the pursuit of agriculture and government. Why were we not told long ago that we could not be permitted to establish a government within the limits of any state?
The Cherokees have always had a government of their own. Nothing, however, was said when we were governed by savage laws.
Others say it is time for the Cherokees to submit to inevitable destiny. What Destiny? To be slandered and then butchered?
Yes, this is the bitter cup prepared for us by a republican and religious government. We shall drink it to the dregs.”
Elias Boudinot (Buck Watie), 1829 , Editor, The Cherokee
Phoenix Newspaper, New Echota, Cherokee Nation, Georgia
If the allegations are just lies then Mitt Romney can and should refute them. He is under no obligation to permit such libel if it is in fact untrue.
And yeah, Romney's abortion position of the past wasn't the best,
Just the opposite, according to the article his position on abortion back in the 1970's before he ran for office was great.
but I understand where he stood and why it makes this story a non-issue.
If Mitt Romney did in fact sell out his pro-life convictions to obtain office, this will be a major issue for me and I suspect many other pro-lifers.
I don't believe that I have asked you anything. You made an unsolicited statement to me in your post #14.
I told you why he won't respond to this. One, the story is from 1994, and is not circulating.
Time will tell.
Second part of the story is about a confidential topic and by addressing it he would be violating confidentiality with a parishoner.
If the allegations are just lies then Mitt Romney can and should refute them. He is under no obligation to permit such libel if it is in fact untrue, regardless of the nature of the relationship.
Third, by taking the time to address the issue, one that isn't being circulated, he would be giving it attention, and thus risk the possibility that even after he explains it, people like yourself still wouldn't believe him and thus he would lose confidence with the voters.
Sounds like Clinton.
Also Romney probably first took a serious position in 1970 (when I will remind you, he was 23, don't know too many under 23 that have serious political opinions, and this was likely his first position on the issue. (I dont believe the article states if he even had an opinion before 1970)
The article doesn't say anything relevant about 1970. The alleged incident happened in the late 1970's while Mitt Romney was a bishop.
Thus, because he took a Pro-Choice position in 1970, he didn't sell anything out in 1994, cause he ran on the same position as he had held since he was 23.
Where are you getting his position at age 23 from. He was pro-life in the late 1970's. Are you saying that he was pro-abortion before he was against abortion before he was for abortion before he was against it? Even John Kerry never managed a Flip-flop-flip-flop.
I don't understand your confusion, seems like you are just trying to make something out of nothing.
It seems like you didn't read the article. I'll be happy to highlight it for you using some HTML I put together on another thread:
X said she found herself arguing with Romney about her medical crisis, said he was very unsympathetic, very critical, and [he] said that under the circumstances in no way did he condone her aborting the child.
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