When Mitt Romney was running for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 he said that while he personally opposed abortion, he would â??protect the current pro-choice status quo in Massachusettsâ?¦Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not the governmentâ??s.â?Â
This raises an important question as to whether a person can be personally â??pro-lifeâ? and supportive of a â??womenâ??s right to chooseâ? simultaneously as suggested by Mitt.
In short the answer is a resounding, no.
If you are â??pro-lifeâ? it means that you support legal protection for living human beings inside their motherâ??s womb regardless of the stage of development.
Those who call themselves â??pro-choiceâ? support the legal â??rightâ? to abort their developing baby in the motherâ??s womb. The term â??pro-choiceâ? is actually a misnomer since the baby who is killed during an abortion â??procedureâ? never gets a â??choiceâ? in the matter. Thus, people who donâ??t support legal protection for developing babies in the womb are pro-abortion.
I would also like to ask Governor Romney if the 750,000 female babies in the womb who are killed every year in the US should have a â??choiceâ? in the matter.
So, you can only be one or the other. Itâ??s understandable that politicians such as Romney, Kerry, and Clinton all say they personally â??oppose abortionâ? but donâ??t believe they have a â??right to impose their beliefs on somebody else.â? After all, they are attempting to appeal to both sides of the debate by staking out some â??moderateâ? more â??middle of the roadâ? position.
As I write in my book â??Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Liesâ?Â
â??The bottom line is that those who call themselves â??pro-choiceâ? oppose legal protection for the unborn and condone the murder of other developing babies. Indeed, one canâ??t be pro-choice and pro-life simultaneously. The statement that â??I believe that abortion is murder and am personally opposed to murder but support a womenâ??s right to choose murderâ? is an irreconcilable, confused, and utterly absurd notion that is totally inane.â?Â
Itâ??s like saying: â??I oppose slavery and would never own one personally, but donâ??t think I have a right to impose my beliefs on others. Itâ??s a choice people have to make individually.â?Â
Memo to Governor Romney: When you are elected to public office, your job is to advance the ideas and values you believe in and ran on and to codify them into law. So, in a way, as an elected representative of the people, your job is to impose your beliefs- which are ostensibly the shared beliefs of those who elected you to office- and to enshrine them into law. What do you think governors and presidents do, just let the people decided matters by the dictates of their own â??beliefs?â? That a presidential candidate-especially a self-described conservative would hold such an opinion is fairly unsettling.
With regards to Romneyâ??s comment that, â??Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not the governmentâ??sâ?Â- this too is totally inane and demonstrates to me that this is not the type of brain power we want occupying the White House. By his line of reasoning, government should not restrict abortion in any way even â??partial birth abortionâ? since it might conflict with a â??womenâ??s personal beliefs.â? I wonder how Governor Romney would reconcile that incongruous position if questioned?
If the Republican party now feels that men such as Giuliani and Romney- liberal country club Republicans through and through-are qualified to lead the Party of Lincoln and Reagan, then we will have abandoned what Thomas Jefferson considered governmentâ??s primary role- the protection of innocent human life. And when and if we take that step, that will be the beginning of the end for the Republican Party and, I believe, America.