There’s not a whole lot to add to what’s already been said regarding Mitt Romney’s newly-minted "different place" on abortion rights and his political strategist’s confession that Romney has been "faking" his position on abortion rights all along (the National Review, by the way, is rejecting out of hand Mike Murphy’s lame attempt to explain away his embarrassing quotation as taken "out of context"). So I thought I’d just refresh our collective recollection as to what Mitt Romney actually said in 2002 when he was trying to become Governor:
The gubernatorial candidate wasted no time declaring that he is a "fiscal conservative and a social moderate." He courted both the gay and lesbian vote and the pro-abortion bloc, telling the convention, "Believing in people is fighting prejudice and bigotry wherever it exists, while extending an open hand to each other, regardless of color, faith, or lifestyle?. Believing in people is protecting their freedom to make their own life choices, even if their choice is different from yours. Accordingly, I respect and will fully protect a woman’s right to choose. That right is a deeply personal one, and the women of our state should make it based on their beliefs, not mine and not the government’s."
Making sure that he was being fully understood, the former Mormon bishop reiterated his position. He said, "The truth is there is no candidate in this race who would deny the women of our state abortion rights. So let’s end an argument that does nor exist and put to rest these cynical and divisive attacks made simply for political gain."
Gosh, sounds pretty pro-choice to me. (.08 has a similar observation.) Because, really, nobody likes abortion – getting careless commentators to use the term "pro-abortion" instead of "pro-choice" has been one of the religious right’s greatest successes in terms of creating an inaccurate and unappealing frame for their opponents. The debate is whether women get to decide whether to terminate unwanted pregnancies, or whether the government gets to decide. The former is commonly called the "pro-choice" position, and the latter is the "pro-life" position ("pro-life" being another brilliant framing job).
It’s becoming so painfully apparent that Romney actually has no convictions about anything (as we’ve remarked before). When he wanted to be elected Governor of Massachusetts, he said what he thought people would want to hear. Now that he’s running for President, he’s doing the same thing – except that he’s talking to different people who want to hear different things. So he’s finding himself in a "different place" on lots of issues.
"Different place," my ass. He can’t possibly think that anyone is actually going to buy what he’s peddling on this. We may be witnessing, in real time, the disintegration of a once seemingly limitless political career.
UPDATE (6/5): Eileen McNamara quotes some of Romney’s words from his 1994 Senate campaign. Particularly noteworthy: "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a US Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain it and support it."
getting careless commentators to use the term “pro-abortion” instead of “pro-choice” has been one of the religious right’s greatest successesYes!! I was actually talking about that with someone today. How many people are pro-abortion? I think being pro-choice is just being pro-good decision making.
More and more I’m convinced that Romney is not running for governor anymore.
Nobody likes abortion? Really? Really? True, it’s not as if anyone goes out and gets pregnant on purpose just for the sake of having an abortion. But there are plenty of people who (1) think of their own abortion as a positive and good thing, and (2) will positively recommend abortion in many situations (i.e., as opposed to merely saying that it should be the woman’s “choice”). By analogy, if I not only favor freedom of speech for flag-burning, but also praise the positive effect that flag-burning has had on my life, and urge other people to burn flags whenever they desire, why would I be so resentful if someone used the term “pro flag-burning”? The real reason here, of course, is that pro-choicers know full well that abortion is at best a nasty and cruel thing. Hence they are embarrassed to be called “pro-abortion.” If abortion were really like any other kind of health-care, pro-choicers wouldn’t object to the term “pro-abortion” any more than they would object to the term “pro-health-care.”