Mitt Romney doesn’t want to keep you from having an abortion, ladies. Except that he’d be delighted to sign a bill banning all abortions. All abortions.
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You can see the ad that this is responding to here:
http://mycmag.kantarmediana.com/videos/PRES_ROMNEY_EXTREME.mov
But fair warning: don’t watch it if you’ve eaten recently.
As someone who has been quoted out of context in a newspaper article to sound as if I had said the opposite of what I really said, it irks me especially to see that technique being used in this ad. The context is key, and the ad doesn’t include the crucial bits that show the emphasis is entirely in the opposite direction.
Romney’s position at the time was demonstrably the same as his current position (he’s on record about it over and over during the 2007 primaries), which is to oppose abortion on policy grounds but to leave it to states to determine that policy rather than enforce his policy preference at the federal level. He does favor overturning Roe v. Wade, but that would just leave it to states. His policy preference is to have the standard exceptions that are popular with moderate pro-lifers, but he wouldn’t impose that on states from a federal level, and he wouldn’t even impose it on a state as governor that had a very different consensus on the issue.
His emphasis in responding to this question, which the ad omits, was that if the country moved a great deal on the abortion question (a huge if), and the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade (possible but not immediately on the horizon with this lineup on the court), and Congress passed an abortion ban (especially unlikely in the near future), he could sign it, but he didn’t think those conditions were even remotely likely to occur under his presidency, and I doubt he thinks differently now. He thus is much more of a gradualist on the question than the Obama campaign would like us to believe. People who believe in an absolute right to abortion will surely not like Romney’s position, but this ad strikes me as being pants-on-fire level dishonesty.
I don’t know if I should believe Romney (I do take his change of mind on the question to be genuine), but his official position at the time was clear, and this video is consistent with that once you see his emphasis. But Obama doesn’t want us to know what Romney really said, so I know I don’t believe Obama on Romney on this question. General rule of thumb: political ads quoting the opponent usually leave out important context, which usually determines the emphasis or meaning in a different way than the ad suggests. This is not as bad as the Romney ad that quoted Obama as saying something when Obama was actually quoting McCain in order to disagree with him. But this is bad enough. At this stage in the race, virtually no ads are honest enough that we should just believe what they say, even if they do quote the opponent directly.
Jeremy, how would signing a Congressional ban on all abortions be consistent with leaving abortion to the states?
What Romney said, if you include what the ad left out, is that he would be delighted to sign a law like that only under certain far-fetched conditions, one of which would be a huge shift in popular opinion on the abortion issue. The reason he thinks it should be left to states is because there’s a sharp division at the state level on this question. When there’s overwhelming consensus on an issue, that changes things, and he’d sign a bill that agreed with his personal policy preference if he thought there was national consensus on it. Lacking that, he sees it as best handled on a state-level issue.
So self-determination over wildly variant instances of the results of fetal defect/sexual assault/choice/etc. should be left to the vicissitudes of states’ rights? That is insane. Romney defaults to his right-wing base on this, and that is the basest form of self-interested demagoguery. He has no moral compass–he is a patriarchal theocratic egoist. The 21st century should have no place for such idiocy. The fact it does drives me to drink.
Maybe the ban of abortions at the federal level will only apply to areas which exclusively fall under federal law? Like embassies, overseas military installations and space ships.
Jeremy, Cooper’s question seems to give the context:
“Anderson Cooper:
“If Roe v. Wade was overturned, Congress passed a federal ban on all abortions, and it came to your desk — would you sign it? ‘Yes’, or ‘no?’”
The position he describes may be extreme but it is hardly unrealistic.
Did you listen to Romney’s answer, in context? Cooper’s question isn’t quite what Romney answered, given what Romney said leading up to what this ad quoted.
JP, could you give us a source for your claim?
Actually, I found the transcript of the debate. I don’t think Romney is misrepresented at all. It’s very clear: he thinks that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land and should be followed and respected. He also thinks the issues should have been decided by the states. He thinks that abortion should be safe in this country, but he thinks it would be wonderful if there were no abortions at all. And if Roe v. Wade is overturned and congress passes a law banning abortion, he’s sign it.
So much for states rights, safety of the mother when the pregnancy threatens her life, cases of rape and incest.
Well, factcheck.org agrees with me.
I’ll have to go back to the ad, since factcheck seemed to attribute mor to the ad than I remember. These are delicate matters, however, since the ad was about what’s implied.
The factcheck.org blurb on this ad seems to be mistaken, since it claims that the ad says that Romney “backed a bill” to ban all abortions. Watch the ad. It says no such thing.
What Romney *does* say is that he’d be delighted – delighted! – to sign a federal ban on all abortions. He has of course hedged that at various points both past and present. But it’s what he said. And it stands to reason that a candidate should be held accountable for something said so explicitly, clearly, and publicly. Especially when that candidate’s views on abortion, amongst other things, have proved very. . .unstable, shall we say?
The ad is simply saying “Is this who you want to vote for? The man who says he’d be delighted to sign a federal ban on all abortions?”
Romney changed his mind once on this issue and has maintained a pretty consistent position since then, allowing for moments of not specifying all the details or of contextual differences in emphasis. There’s no good reason to call his position since that change unstable. He’s had difficulty coming up with a clearly-defined view on some issues, but this isn’t one of them, despite how his primary opponents tried to make it appear. Most people here wouldn’t come close to liking that position, but I don’t think there’s any reason to call it unstable.
I have no problem with holding him to what he’s said. I just don’t like taking in out of context, and I do think his expression of delight at signing it came after far more significant qualifications than the ad makes it appear. His very emphasis was that he didn’t think it could happen during his presidency. It’s the sort of hesitation that most pro-lifers would consider squeamish and grounds for calling him a moderate on the issue, something like a Ron Paul maybe (who thinks abortion should be banned at the local level but is resistant to very much action on the issue on the federal level). But it strikes me as just plain consistent with the position he’s taken since his initial conversion on the issue.
Jeremy, I think you may be missing the point of emphasis on the “delight” comment. I realize that Romney said this in the context of a claim that it wouldn’t be feasible during his presidency. I also don’t care. The central issue is that this is a man who says that he would be *delighted* to sign a federal ban on all abortion, were it to come across his desk. That’s not a man that should be in a position to sign federal bans on anything.
As for Romney’s voiced or official position on abortion – the reason to think it’s unstable is that it’s unstable.
The Washington Post has a nice summary of some of the current shiftiness:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/romney-pivots-on-abortion-seeks-center/2012/10/10/6c3bfb82-12f2-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html
Then, for example, here’s what he said about it in June 2011: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/269984/my-pro-life-pledge-mitt-romney
And in comparison here’s what he said about it a few days ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/us/politics/romney-pledges-to-keep-tax-deductions-for-mortgages.html?hp&_r=0
(Money quote: “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.”)
There’s also substantial evidence that he has been significantly more hardline in the past. For example: http://www.ontheissues.org/Real_Romney.htm
And then of course there was the pro-choice (but “personal opposition”) platform he used when running for MA governor.
That looks pretty unstable to me. But I doubt I or anyone else on this thread will convince you on that point (or on any of the wider issues we’re discussing) so I’d suggest we draw this to a close.
Magicalersatz, I agree with closing this thread.
There’s a difference between being willing to support others’ legislation and sign it and having it as part of your agenda. Bush was certainly supportive of pro-life causes. The only part of that that was in his agenda was ending the Mexico City policy and his allowance of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research on existing stem lines. An agenda is what you’re prioritizing and what you will push. It’s also a vague enough notion that you might have in mind your very top items as your agenda in one context and a larger set of items in another. So saying it’s not in his agenda at one time and saying it’s something you want to do in another does not amount to instability.
I’m not interested in going through bit by bit every item the Boston Globe thinks amounts to a flip-flop. I’ve spent time on that before, as long ago as five years ago for some of them (they’ve been purveying this charge at least that long), and I have consistently found myself unconvinced that he keeps changing his views on the matter. I don’t myself happen to think Romney would spend a lot of effort pushing this issue, less so than even Bush (who basically didn’t have it on his agenda, although he did do a few things, as Romney would). I also think it’s unlikely that the Supreme Court or Congress would allow much movement on abortion anyway. So I think this is much hand-wringing over what will amount to small changes at most. But my main point is that the ad misrepresents Romney’s emphasis, and as I’ve been misrepresented in exactly that way on other issues I find it irritating and dishonest.
I do think the idea that someone who values human life at the embryonic or fetal stage has no business signing legislation to be the extreme view. As President Obama likes to say, this is a lot more complex an issue than most people make it out to be, and those who end up concluding other concerns are more decisive than the ones you think are decisive does not mean they are evil. There are good reasons for wanting less abortion, and there are good reasons for wanting to give people more autonomy. The problem is that you can’t do both simultaneously on this question, aside from technology that can remove the fetus while not threatening its life, because these are in most cases competing ethical concerns. You can value both concerns and recognize that different people think different ones are more decisive. You might think one more important than the other, or you might seek a moderating position that tries to find a middle ground. But I don’t think we can take one side and say the other side has no business seeking to favor the other. I shudder when pro-lifers treat the pro-choice view as taking abortion to be a moral good worth maximizing, and I find it equally worrying when pro-choicers treat pro-lifers as wanting to restrict women’s rights, engaging on a war on women, and so on, when it’s clear that that’s not their motivation nor their goal. I see philosophers, especially those of us who support the fundamental, overriding concern of feminism, as needing to be above that kind of demonization. I highly recommend Richard Chappell’s recent posts on this issue of tolerance of those whose views you disagree with.
Jeremy, as I’ve said above, I don’t think further conversation on this topic is going to be productive. You’ve made your views known.
I’m sorry that you find it worrying when advocates of abortion rights portray their opponents as wanting to restrict women’s rights. But sometimes the truth is worrying.
Though I don’t think continuing this general conversation would prove productive, I do think it’s worth clearing up exactly whose posts Jeremy is directing us to, because they don’t appear to be Richard Chappell’s.
Huh. I thought they were. He links to them from his Twitter account as if they were his latest posts, and his sidebar on his blog links to them in a way that I was taking to be his posts elsewhere, but maybe I was misinterpreting both.
Just to clarify: I have linked to, but did not author, the posts Jeremy mentions. (Apologies for any confusion!)