Mitt Romney: "I'm firmly pro-life"
File
this under the department of overthinking things:
As the presidential campaign swirls around a war for the allegiance of American women, the Obama campaign is relying on an explosive — and highly questionable — charge to draw pro-choice women into the President's camp: That Mitt Romney would "outlaw abortion" if elected.
Actually, saying Mitt Romney wants to "outlaw abortion" doesn't seem questionable at all given that Romney wants to overturn
Roe v. Wade and
says this on his website:
I am pro-life and believe that abortion should be limited to only instances of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Unless he's merely stating his personal belief—you know, like what Mitt would do if he were ever to become pregnant himself—that seems like a pretty clear indication that he supports efforts to outlaw abortion. Efforts like overturning
Roe v. Wade, which would allow Congress and state legislatures to pass legislation banning abortion:
I support the reversal of Roe v. Wade, because it is bad law and bad medicine. Roe was a misguided ruling that was a result of a small group of activist federal judges legislating from the bench.
Yet for some reason, BuzzFeed's McKay Coppins and Andrew Kaczynski unfortunately subscribe to
a school of thought that says maybe Mitt Romney doesn't really want to outlaw abortion:
The claim first surfaced in a document posted to the campaign's website Wednesday titled, "5 Things You Need To Know About Mitt Romney." The last bullet point — which has been retweeted by Barack Obama and his campaign staffers over the past 24 hours— says, "He'd get rid of Planned Parenthood and outlaw abortion."
A review of the Republican's conflicted abortion record reveals that claim to be a stretch, at best. While Romney has undergone a long, public evolution on this issue over the past two decades — straining, at times, to defend his pro-life credentials to suspicious conservatives — he's never called for an outright federal ban on all abortions.
Maybe Romney hasn't called for "an outright federal ban on all abortions", but that isn't the claim. The claim is that if Mitt Romney were elected president "he'd outlaw abortion." Sure, you can read that extremely narrowly and declare that it's false if for no other reason than that the president can't outlaw anything by himself. Of course, by that logic, then it would also be false to say he'd repeal Obamacare as president.
You might also say that the claim is false because because Romney supports exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother and therefore doesn't support a ban on all abortions. But that too would be like saying Romney doesn't want to repeal Obamacare because he'd maintain a small number of its provisions.
But objecting to the claim that Mitt Romney would outlaw abortion on such narrow grounds is somewhat farcical. And I'm not just saying that speaking as a critic of Mitt Romney. His own website makes it clear he supports outlawing abortion:
Mitt believes that life begins at conception and wishes that the laws of our nation reflected that view.
Romney, however, doesn't believe that a federal ban on abortion is practical
at the present time given the current political climate. Therefore:
But while the nation remains so divided, he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade – a case of blatant judicial activism that took a decision that should be left to the people and placed it in the hands of unelected judges. With Roe overturned, states will be empowered through the democratic process to determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate.
So in the words of Mitt Romney's own website, he supports overturning
Roe v. Wade because it would let individual states outlaw abortion. But he doesn't believe the push to outlaw abortion should end there: that's merely "the next step." And though it is true overturning
Roe v. Wade would empower states to ban abortion, it would also empower the federal government to do the same.
Obviously, Mitt Romney was once pro-choice. But he's now solidly pro-life, and with the exceptions noted above believes abortion should be against the law. It's true that he says he doesn't believe it would be possible to immediately pass a federal ban on abortion, but that's merely a political assessment on his part. If it were possible to do so, he has made it clear that he would.
My bottom-line is that any reasonable reading of Mitt Romney's current position on abortion is that he wants it to be outlawed and if he were president would take steps towards accomplishing that goal. And if anyone doubts that to be the case, they should ask Romney's campaign whether he would sign into law a federal ban on abortion if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned. I've already asked, and I've yet to receive a response.