Preaching the choir at the Iowa State Fair, 59-year-old former Baptist minister and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said a big fat no to abortion under any circumstances. Huckabee believes two wrongs don’t make a right when it comes to abortion, believing, as most religious conservatives, that human life begins at conception, not birth or sometime before. Huckabee rejected the scenario of a 10-year-old rape or incest victim seeking an abortion. “Creating one problem that is horrible—let nobody be misled, a 10-year-old girl being raped is horrible,” Huckabee told CNN’s “State of the Union” hostr Jake Tapper. “But does it solve a problems by taking the life of an innocent child? And that’s really the issue,” referring to an embryo as a “child.” Huckabee’s abortion language mirrors that of other Pro-Life advocates that make no distinctions for embryological development.
Huckabee isn’t ignorant of embryology to call an embryo or fetus an “unborn child.” Late President Ronald Reagan, when her ran of president against former President Jimmy Carter in 1980, liked to say, “that he noticed that everyone for abortion has already been born,” stating the conservative Pro-Life manifesto that life begins at conception. Huckabee’s point was illustrated by an 11-year-old Paraguayan girl, who recently gave birth nine-months after raped by her stepfather. Huckabee’s no exception to abortion rule would toss out the 1974 landmark Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortion around the 50-contiguous United States including Alaska and Hawaii. Huckabee and his pro-choice colleagues, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.), refuse to give any exceptions to abortions, believing the D&C procedure is equivalent to murder.
Heading into the Iowa caucuses Feb. 9, 2016, abortion reigns supreme among religious conservatives, co-opting the Pro-Life issue despite pressing issues related to Medicare, Social Security, education and foreign policy. Religious conservative like the pro-Life issue because its very impracticality defines the religious conservative cause. No other issue offers the exclusivity more to Christian conservatives. Saying there was “no easy answer” to the anti-abortion cause, Huckabee staked out his position to religious conservatives. “When an abortion happens, there are two victims,” said Huckabee, referring to problems for the mother and with unborn child. Religious conservative aren’t respectful of women’s reproductive freedom, preferring to overturn Roe v. Wade and turn back the clock on women’s rights. Religious conservative men want to take the abortion decision out of a women’s hands.
Opposing abortion of any kind, Huckabee acts like he’s banning abortion for the mother and unborn child’s own good. “One is the child, the other is the birth mother, who often will go through extraordinary guilt years later when she begins to think through what happened, with the baby, with her,” showing the kind of twisted logic leading Pro-Life fanatics to take the lives of abortion doctors or other personnel at places like Planned Parenthood. Recent statements by GOP candidates, like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, comparing abortion to murder shows the extremes to which the abortion arguments go. Pro-life advocates aren’t content to oppose abortion in their own communities. They seek to abolish abortion, forcing teenagers back into the back alley or going South of the border. Huckabee can’t comprehend that the abortion question is best left to pregnant mothers.
Front-running 69-year-old GOP candidate Donald Trump takes a less extreme abortion position than others in his Party. Exceptions are made for “rape, incest [and] if the mother is going to die,” still opposing a women’s right to choose. Trump knows that the abortion issue can land him votes with religious conservatives but still states his exceptions without apologizing. Speaking after Trump on CNN’s “State of the Union, Ohio Gov. John Kasich dismissed the abortion debate as a red herring. “I think it is an important issues, but I think there’s many other issues that are really critical,” Kasich told Tapper. “Early childhood, infant mortality, the environment, education. I think we focus too much on just one issue, and know that the issue of gay marriage is kind of off the table, we’re kind of down to one social issues,” said Kasich, serving notice that he wants to focus on relevant issues.
Most expect religious conservative GOP candidates like Huckabee to oppose abortion. Proving that he’s a clever propagandist, 63-year-old pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson tried to talk-the-talk on abortion, sitting on the fence to woo religious conservative at the Iowa State Fair. “I have spent my life trying to save life, not trying to destroy it,” said Carson, not saying whether or not he approved of a women’s right to choose abortion. Of all the phony positions, no licensed physician wants the government interfering in medical decision-making. If you follow Huckabee’s logic, physicians should pay a draconic price for performing abortions. Carson can’t accept a position where innocent doctors are put behind bars for performing medical procedures requested by unwed or married pregnant women. No rational doctor opposes abortion because of saving unwanted embryos.
