You ignored this quoting from 1968 ‘In fact, Cannon writes that in 1968, the year after the bill passed, Reagan said that “those were awful weeks,” and that he would never have signed the bill if he had “been a more experienced governor.”’
I don’t think that you realize how little abortion was on the radar then, but here is an excellent description of why your attack on Reagan has nothing to do with clearing up the 2005 Romney.
“”And I laid out in my view that a civilized society must respect the sanctity of life. And you know what? I’m following in some pretty good footsteps.
It’s exactly what Ronald Reagan did. As governor, he was adamantly pro-choice. He became pro-life as he experienced life.””
Adamantly. Romney told us that as California Governor, Ronald Reagan was stubbornly unyielding in his support for abortion rights. Oh, please forgive me if I’m shaking a little, but for gawdsakes, the President isn’t alive to defend himself from this stuff. This is a “fib,” and we have discussed this here last month.
Here is a description of the Therapeutic Abortion Act, which Governor Reagan signed in 1967:
It was “sold” as a compassionate law that would be used to deal with the “hard cases.” This statute allowed the termination of pregnancy by a physician, in an accredited hospital, when there was a specific finding that there was a substantial risk that its continuation would “gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother,” or when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. However, the law did provide that no termination of pregnancy could be approved after the 20th week of pregnancy.
The law Reagan signed would be “unconstitutional” under Roe v. Wade; in fact, the California Supreme Court tossed it in 1972.
In Reagan’s owned words from In His Own Words, transcribed by commenter Thomas TomlinsonDouthat, Reagan wrote:
Now, with regard to the permissive bill I supposedly signed, let me give you the correct history of what took place early in my term as governor. A bill was introduced that was permissive, indeed was abortion on demand. Naturally, there was great controversy about this bill. The author finally sent word that he would amend his bill to anything the governor would sign. Faced with this responsibility, I probably did more study and more soul searching on the subject that I had done on anything in my eight years as governor. I came to the conclusion, as I have already stated, that it [abortion] could only be justified to save a human life. The matter of health—meaning the permanent damage to the health of the mother if she went through with her pregnancy—was brought up. It seemed to me that the mother would have the right to protect herself from permanent damage just as she would be able to protect herself, even if it meant taking a life, from someone threatening her with mayhem, so I agreed to that provision. I thought there was adequate provision in the bill requiring responsible boards in the medical profession to declare such permanent harm would follow the birth of the child. Perhaps it was my inexperience in government, but, like so many pieces of legislation, there were loopholes that I had not seen, and the thing that made the California abortion bill become somewhat permissive in nature was violation of the spirit of the legislation by the groups that were supposed to police it. This was particularly true in the case of psychiatrists. If faced with the same problem today, I can assure you I would make sure there were no loopholes in the bill....
At the point that he signed the bill, Ronald Reagan was adamantly pro-life. Romney had said, in his previous incarnation, that he would support Roe v. Wade, abortion on demand, no matter what. Reagan said that he would support abortion only if it would save the mother’s life and, in the extreme circumstance, health.
But as Reagan admitted, he had been snookered. Romney was not.
Note that Romney said that Reagan’s soul searching came in the years following his signing of that bill, “as he experienced life.” That is not the case. His soul searching came before he signed the bill, though his advocacy of life became stronger as infants became more threatened.
The more you try, the sillier it becomes. Everyone spins and revises to explain the prior mistakes. I don’t think it’s any grave sin that Reagan or Romney committed. But what was it Regan didn’t understand in 1967. Did he know how babies were conceived, gestated and born? Why did he think abortion had been illegal almost forever?
He and his worshipers are just spinning to explain away his mistakes and inconsistencies in the past. The same as other politicians and their spinners do, like the pro-life, and pro-second amendment Clinton and Gore when they were running for state office in the South.
You’re recycling the same old spin about “adamant” or not. All political spin.