Posted on 10/20/2011 7:50:01 AM PDT by julieee
Cain: Government Shouldn't Make Decision on Abortion, Rape
Washington, DC -- Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is raising eyebrows today of pro-life advocates and political pundits who thought he had previously taken a pro-life position on abortion.
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/20/cain-government-shouldnt-make-decision-on-abortion-rape/
(Excerpt) Read more at lifenews.com ...
"If one of your female children, grandchildren was raped, you would honestly want her to bring up that baby as her own?" Morgan asked.
Cain said that Morgan was "mixing" questions, but then replied:
"No, it comes down to it's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you're not talking about that big a number. So what I'm saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue."
I don't know how he could make it any clearer then this. People around here who are emotionally tied to other candidates in the campaign need to keep in mind the 9th Commandment is not a suggestion.
Bearing false witness is still a sin.
"If one of your female children, grandchildren was raped, you would honestly want her to bring up that baby as her own?" Morgan asked.
Cain said that Morgan was "mixing" questions, but then replied:
"No, it comes down to it's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you're not talking about that big a number. So what I'm saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue."
I don't know how he could make it any clearer then this. People around here who are emotionally tied to other candidates in the campaign need to keep in mind the 9th Commandment is not a suggestion.
Bearing false witness is still a sin.
"If one of your female children, grandchildren was raped, you would honestly want her to bring up that baby as her own?" Morgan asked.
Cain said that Morgan was "mixing" questions, but then replied:
"No, it comes down to it's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you're not talking about that big a number. So what I'm saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue."
I don't know how he could make it any clearer then this. People around here who are emotionally tied to other candidates in the campaign need to keep in mind the 9th Commandment is not a suggestion.
Bearing false witness is still a sin.
There are situations where the mother will die if she is not immediately induced into labor. If the baby is too young to survive, now there is a difficult question to deal with. Shall we say, honey, hang on, you’ve got to have that child, even though the doctors all say that you will be dead within a week, but the baby will not survive unless you carry him for another four weeks ? Hang in there, we’ll wait until the last possible moment when you die - then we’ll see if the doctors can’t deliver the baby and we get lucky and the baby somehow survives. You’re going to have to do this for your baby. Even though the doctors say that if they deliver the baby soon enough, though the baby probably won’t make it, you won’t die, but you’ll be perfectly healthy.
In that case - mom has no health problems other than those caused by pregnancy - mother and father’s decision, and a baby who did not choose to be conceived.
Of course, the baby is not an aggressor. It’s not a question of “guilt”, no one planned an attack on another.
Nevertheless, it’s husband and wife and pregnancy that has caused the wife to be in that situation to have her life in danger. And while they do not have the right to end the unborn child’s life if there is every indication that the child could survive, I’ve described a situation where the child is at say 16 weeks - too early for even modern medicine to have any use. And where the wife is having seizures and is quickly nearing death unless the pregnancy is ended. And ending the pregnancy is the prescribed medical cure and is most certain to save her life. How many husbands would order their doctor to not save their wife’s life in that particular situation ? It is quite a serious thing for a husband to consent to efforts to save his wife’s life to be abandoned. And whose “fault” is the situation ? Well, the child in the womb is what will cause the wife’s death. Both husband and wife decided to get pregnant. If I were the husband, I could not escape the fact that my actions were part of this. I’ve got a wife and unborn child, both apparently going to die if I order that nothing is done. My unborn child is most certainly going to die, as my wife will not survive long enough for him to have a chance. I can only ask that the doctor try to save my wife’s life. Upon what Biblical basis would my wife and I decide to deliver the baby at that point, by all accounts, too early for the child to survive ? The only act that will save her life is an act that will ultimately kill the child and if this is not done then that decision will kill my wife. The only possible way to think of that is essentially self defense, a pure case where there is a decision to be made: unborn child delivers too early to live, or else wife dies. The only legitimate reasons for taking a human life are self-defense and on a battlefield in a righteous war. My wife is entitled to attempt to survive seeing that she will not live long enough for our baby to survive if she does not consent to the early delivery of the child. This is differentiated from the situations where the doctors tell us that the wife has almost no chance of survival in any case, or where she has a chance of survival in any case. The early delivery in those situations is not necessary to save my wife’s life.
Doctors probably will express the potential outcomes in terms of probabilities, not strict yes or no results. Perhaps this is why socially conservative politicians like Mr. Cain don’t presume to be able to craft legislation that will cover every situation; the best decisions are undoubtedly made by a doctor who has a good grasp on what they can and can’t achieve and patients who consult Scripture for direction. Certainly the easy situations can be made into simple and righteous laws, such as healthy pregnancies can’t be aborted.
What makes self-defense a dangerous and very distastful concept to start talking about it is the fact that it is very inappropriately used to justify child murdering for convenience. Of course, I’ve described above a very specific situation, where the child in the womb is precisely what is killing the mother, the child won’t survive and the mother will if and only if the pregnancy ends. Once the situation changes to where the mother can survive long enough so that the child can survive, it’s a different situation as well. That’s why once the child is far enough along to survive, there’s never a reason to abandon the child.
There are cases of self-defense that do not involve personal attacks I can think of.
A bear in my house - he’s just a hungry bear, not a human, so he’s not “guilty” in the human sense. But I would certainly call it a self-defense situation.
Perhaps a broader term would be “survival situation”. We always have the right and responsibility to try to survive, as good servants; a good servant does not just roll over, give up and die. But if we must lay down our lives for another, we are called to do that.
IMHO...
If one of your female children, grandchildren was raped you would honestly want her to bring up that baby as her own?
that Cain answered: It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue."
First, The question was about his OWN family, not some other family. You are claiming he accurately answered the question by disowning his own family. Second, the question was about what he would want, and he replied about what he would DO. That answer is a lousy answer to the question, if Cain was answering the question, and not the question Peirs clearly was trying to ask.
And later, Peirs says his answer was unique, and Cain agreed -- what would be unique about saying that a woman should make her own mind up about whether to keep a child or put it up for adoption? No politician is trying to force women to RAISE the kid.
His answer makes no sense in the context people are trying to claim he meant it.
"It's not the government's role" is just not a responsive OR rational answer to "would you honestly WANT her to bring up that baby".
It is A RATIONAL answer to the question "if it was your own child, would you still want to ban abortion?"
And it goes along with his clear answer to the question "why shouldn't we worry about your personal position on the issue of abortion", where Cain replied that he wouldn't legislate his own opinions.
I think people need to remember the 9th Commandment is not a suggestion. Bearing false witness is still a sin.
Did you do a confession yet for claiming that Rick Perry painted N*ggerhead on the rock, and then calling freepers who corrected you liars?
Cain could straighten this out in 1 minute. He just needs to put out a statement "I would support a law banning abortion in all cases except to save the life of the mother". But when he actually came out, all he said was "I'm 100% pro-life", which answers NOTHING.
Why is he having such a hard time saying such a simple thing. Every other candidate can state exactly what abortions they would make illegal.
God is my judge.
Not some POS like you!
That cannot be accomplished by the Ron Paul windtunnel approach of repeating an inapplicable 10th Amendment mantra about what a shame it is that he just cannot DO anything about it federally. Nor can it be achieved by the Barry Goldwater cheerleading for Planned Barrenhood mantra. We have moved beyond such shameful ignorance or evil as a conservative movement. That is why we have this controversy here lest anyone think we are going back.
While typing this post, I was listening to Herman Cain on Sean Hannity's program. In his defense, he sounds genuinely and sincerely shocked that he has been viewed as pro-abortion and it would seem that he recognizes that his responses to Piers Morgan gave rise to the controversy although innocently. I am not a Cain supporter at this point since I think his 9-9-9 tax plan would be a disaster but fairness dictates that he has always claimed to be pro-life and seems to be. I do not doubt that he will be further vetted on the subject and that is as it should be.
The word "incest" is a word injected into the abortion controversy by our enemies to confuse the issue. While a pregnancy arising through a consensual sexual act between two adults might make birth defects mildly more likely, such a pregnancy does not specially merit abortion as a "solution." If the pregnancy arises from the exploitation of a female too young to consent, we call that statutory "rape." Thus, rape is the question. My wife has often observed that abortion in the event of rape amounts to: We'll teach rapist Fred a lesson by killing unborn offspring Susan.
As to "life of the mother": experience teaches that the "threat" to the life of the mother be specific and imminent and not some pie in the sky, bye and bye, or, golly, Miss Molly is sooooo upset that she may kill herself if we don't let her abort. That was the infamous excuse for generations of Yalies seeking abortion for their townie girlfriends when abortion was a felony in Connecticut with a life or health of the mother exception, also bogus psychiatric excuse slips signed by pro-abort shrinks.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. If we have to tear down the edifice of abortion, door jamb by door jamb, as Antonin Scalia once wrote, let us do so. If we can put an end to it all at once (once and for all), that is preferable.
It is not a sufficient answer to send the question back to the states. SCOTUS created this mess federally and crammed it down the throats of all 50 states and the judicial lackeys of SCOTUS have enforced it ever since against every meaningful attempt to reduce or abolish abortion.
We need to adopt SCOTUS's tactics and use the 14th Amendment (Section 1) to define the unborn as "persons" entitled to the full and equal protection of the law by each and every state. First make the necessary SCOTUS appointments to replace two of Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan and/or Sandra Day O'Kennedy. Reverse Roe vs. Wade on that 14th Amendment "personhood" ground. Pro-lifers go to federal and state trial courts throughout the land and obtain injunctions under the "personhood" ruling. Aggressively seek sanctions against Planned Barrenhood and every medical assassin violating the injunctions. Congressionally remove from the SCOTUS and fedcourts any further jurisdiction over the basic question of abortion other than the enforcement of the injunctions.
Herman Cain does disappoint when not signing the pledge of Susan B. Anthony's list and he needs to get a firmer footing on convincing voters of his pro-life principles.
I want Cain to be pro-life, but his statement is a little ambiguous. What EXACTLY is the "choice" that the mother needs to make?
I believe that he is a good man, and I hope that he doesn't give up the fight.
And what situation would that be where a baby would pose such an immediate threat to the mother's life at a stage in the pregnancy where the baby is too young for survival, say 20 weeks?
Most of the serious life threatening conditions that a pregnant women would stand the risk of dealing with happen at a later stage in the pregnancy, a stage at which the baby can be delivered alive and put in to NICU. There is simply no need to kill the baby after 20 weeks to *save the life of the mother*.
I've made it clear that I am willing to give Cain the benefit of the doubt for the time being (I have not settled on a candidate yet and I haven't ruled out Cain); however, Cain needs to get in front of this within the next day or two.
Can’t buy that one. If a woman has her head on straight about the baby’s innocence, she might even love that baby more, not less. We are all born pure, although the world doesn’t drag its feet in the task of screwing us up.
Cain basically wasn’t real clear in the interview. He’s a political neophyte and got twisted up. He’ll clarify or change it or revise it as needed here in the near future.
The interviewer threw a trick statement into the mix. Nobody asked Cain what his opinion was about whether raped women should keep their babies. The whole issue is totally absurd, and a man of Cain’s sophistication wouldn’t be discussing it.
Stop the insults, please or I’ll report your kiester. I’m not a liar and I’m not bearing false witness about anybody. I believe you are.
Freepers have too much libido toward their chosen candidates. When they pick someone, that person can do NO WRONG!
The height of irony since all the Perry people have been scream in state tuition is a ‘states rights’ issue, and if you are against it, you’re against states rights.
Actually, delete that second sentence. The interviewer DID ask him, but I don’t think that was what Cain was answering. Why don’t we all wait until Cain clarifies his position before going ballistic on somebody who isn’t even sure which candidate she’s for yet.
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