Mitt Romney Tells Pro-Life Convention-Goers He Opposes Abortion

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.”

I’m Chad D. Baus. The original article was posted here, and you are invited to go take a look at the stories that are hyperlinked as sources for my story, including Romney’s own admission to the Salt Lake Tribune that he had only been hunting twice (he later tried to modify his estimate to include a few times “varmint hunting”.

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/article3648.html

These same news reports confirm Romney had never been an NRA member until he bought his Life Membership in preparation for his pPresidential run.

But look - the point of the article is about how Romney seems to think gun owners will be willing to just forget his anti-gun political past (or stay willfully ignorant about it). Is he right about you?

That is where I am getting the 23 year old statistic. This is a fairly well known quote, I apologize for assuming you might have come across this.

Thank you, now I know what you were referring to.

Mitt was always personally pro-Life (meaning he would never advice a woman to have an abortion) but at the same time, ultimately leaving the practice to be legal for those that disagreed with him.

That sounds like Rudy Giulliani's or even Barack Obama's definition. I don't believe that this is either pro-life or a fair representation of Mitt Romney's vehement defense of an unborn life during the late 1970's.

This is different from say a Barbara Boxer who believes that abortions can be appropriate, whereas Mitt does not think they are, but will not decide for the rest of society (kind of a quishy position if you ask me).

I agree with the quishy part, but I don't see either position as being pro-life or congruent with Mitt's behavior from the article I referenced.

Like I said before, this is here say, and in the mucky world of politics, by responding to something like this, especially to something which is not circulating the media right now, would be politically idiotic.

The citation referenced above could kill his support in the general election so it is critical he deals with this in the primary. It's no good to anyone for him to win the primary but lose the general.

It would only serve to bring it to the limelight, which can only hurt Romney.

This is much more important than his success. Even his supports should want to see him thoroughly vetted in the primary.

Romney is a slick politician, and wouldn't do something like that.

Then he should deal with this issue and deny it.

Personally, I don't believe Romney said this, it came from a desperate Feminist-Ted Kennedy backer 13 years ago using non-mainstream media sources to make the story. To me, it reeks of DanRatheritis.

I hope you are correct, because if it is not contested it could doom his chances if he gets the nomination.

If Romney ever does respond to this, get back to me, I'd be interested to hear what he says.

Will do. If John F. Kennedy had the allegation like the one above about compromising his convictions because the Vatican told him he could, he would never have been elected. Mitt needs to put this to bed now if it isn't true.

Thanks for your reply. Your Salt Lake Tribune link leads to an error page so the assertion that Romney at any point claimed to have only hunted twice remains unproven.

As I posted before, this NY Times article explains in detail the sequence of events that took place here. Romney told a story about two instances when he went hunting and the AP ran a story portraying those two instances as being the only ones. In response, romney clarified that those weren't the only ones and that was the end of the matter.

Look, I don't know if your problem with Mitt Romney is personal or you just happen to be backing someone else. Now you claim without presenting any evidence that he has an anti-gun political past. Untrue.

Maybe you should check what the NRA had to say about him when he was governor. These make for much better sources on this subject then the Salt Lake Tribune.

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?id=2347

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=1149

I’ve read the machinations his campaign has tried to make since they first told the SLT that he had only been hunting twice. I even referred to a Boston Globe story on this in my piece, which it is important to note was written way back on April 9.

Thanks for the NRA links - speaking of the NRA, as I noted in my piece, Mitt Romney supported the Clinton Gun Ban in 1994, telling the Boston Herald “that’s not going to make me the hero of the NRA. I don’t line up with a lot of special interest groups.”

And in 2002, Romney signed into law what is described as “one of the toughest assault weapons laws in the country.”

Ultimately, I don’t care how many times he has gone hunting, just as I didn’t get snowed by John Kerry’s goose hunting trip here in Ohio. The Second Amendment is NOT about hunting!! I DO care deeply about his attempts to ban semi-automatic rifles, and you should too.

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