In a recent interview with Human Events Mitt has the following to say.
As governor, I’ve had several pieces of legislation reach my desk, which would have expanded abortion rights in Massachusetts. Each of those I vetoed. Every action I’ve taken as the governor that relates to the sanctity of human life, I have stood on the side of life.
So talk is cheap, but action is real. And people can now look at my record.
Mitt’s campaign once again is trying to stop the bleeding with a quick response posted on his web site. To be fair, his team came back with some reasonable responses, first, the the Connector is an independent authority and second, abortion funding is a state mandate and that the Connector plans could not exclude funding. Basically, his response was that he had nothing to do with it and couldn’t do anything about it anyway. Right? Well some people didn’t think so, including Mitt himself.
In an interview with NPR Mitt discusses the possibility of stripping state mandates, such as in vitro fertilization. No mention of abortion.
Q: The new policies being offered may be affordable, but will they be so basic they won’t meet real medical needs?
These are not stripped-down, bare-bones policies. They include preventative care, primary care, tertiary care. They include mental health care. So it’s the health care that our citizens need and deserve. They do not necessarily have to include mandated benefits such as in vitro fertilization, which can be very, very expensive.
The National Review takes it a step further and reviews Mitt Romney’s options of a line item veto to eliminate mandates. Even though the legislature could override his veto, he could have “stood on the side of life” as he put it.
Romney proposed eliminating laws that made it hard to sell cheap, no-frills, high-deductible catastrophic insurance policies. (Make insurance more attractive to healthy young people, and you might not need to force them to buy it.) But the legislature refused to eliminate mandates on coverage, and required zero deductibles for the new plans for low-income people.
The governor has the ability to make modifications to this legislation through a line-item veto. He should use it to eliminate the mandates on coverage, strike the business taxes, and get rid of the individual mandate to buy insurance. (Or at least soften that mandate: His original proposal gave individuals more options in insuring themselves – some of them pretty creative – and did not rely on fines for enforcement.) Even if the overwhelmingly Democratic legislature rejects his changes, conservatives will appreciate his having made the effort.
Mitt’s choice was to do nothing. Eyeon08 asks the question: Did Romney mandate taxpayer-funded abortion? It’s a question conservatives are asking. We here in Massachusetts have already had enough of the Mitt Romney double talk to get elected, it’s now something that the folks on the other side of the aisle are experiencing. Enjoy.
to reduce abortions, if thats really what he wanted to do, was to make sure no woman would ever have to make that choice. Put state funded day care centers on college campuses. Make sure no child ever goes to bed hungry. Ensure woman know about the birth control options available to them. He may have vetoed bills that would have made it easier to get an abortion, but what did he do to help women who were considering one?
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The Democrats for Life have a great proposal in the Congress right now called the Pregnant Women Support Act. Paul Begala and James Carville praise DFLA for it in their book. They say the Act “is built around seventeen concrete policy proposals that would reduce the number of abortions…. We believe these proposals would do more to prevent abortions than all the speeches, all the marches and all the campaign ads the pro-lifers have used over the past 30 years.” They go on to call it “both good politics and, we think, good policy.”
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I agree with them. If Romney, and Bush, and all the others who call themselves pro-life really want to “stand on the side of life” they should be lining up to introduce legislation like this.
As a Catholic who is personally (religiously) anti-abortion but who believes that it’s inappropriate to make abortions illegal*, I had a discussion with a pro-lifer that went like this:
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Once society * pays women the same rate as men * offers free, quality health care to pregnant women, their unborn babies, and their children right up to their 18th birthday * provides free parental training classes * provides free child care * makes sure that children grow up in safe neighborhoods, and in safe homes * ensures that all kids have access to a quality education * makes sure our world (read: T station) is handicap — and hence stroller — accessible
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then I’m willing to become pro-life. Until then, I don’t think it’s fair for you to decide what some woman should do, when there’s so much that will cause her to struggle over the next 19 years and you’ll bear none of that difficulty.
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So, when the pro-lifers start worrying more about what happens after birth, making sure that the lives of the born are protected, then I’m willing to join them protecting the unborn.
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The PWAC above would take some of the steps I outlined above.
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p> * I’m personally anti-infidelity. I don’t think cheating on your spouse should be illegal either. Etc.
not religiously based. As I have said elsewhere, I consider myself an agnostic. It was actually my high school biology class (taught by a man who had nothing but contempt for Christians – seriously, he was pretty bad and even i found it offensive sometimes) that brought me to this place. I realized then that when an egg and a sperm combine it couldn’t be anything but a human being.
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As much as I agree with you that society has a duty to provide all those things, though perhaps not free childcare, I am not willing to legally condone the death of children until that happens. The world is an imperfect place and we should constantly strive to make it better.
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Barney Frank often says that Republicans believe life begins at conception and ends at birth. I agree with him, and thats why I am a member of DFLA. I do worry about what happens to children after birth.
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I also agree that cheating on your spouse is a bad thing, but shouldn’t be illegal. There are many immoral things that should not be outlawed. However, infidelity doesn’t rise to the level of taking an innocent life. There is a difference between the two.
In a world with enough money, abortion wouldn’t happen?
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What about the woman who discovers that because of her medication for a routine medical condition, who becomes pregnant, learns that she is carrying a child with spina bifida, which will never know a day without pain, and will require round the clock care for whatever life s/he may live?
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How much money does it take to fix that?
and I don’t think this does. However, I look at my cousin Mikey, only a few months younger than me. He has such a severe case of Down Syndrome that if you and I were to walk into the room together right now with him he wouldn’t know which of us was related to him. His pain, and his medical problems, and all the suffering his parents and my whole family has gone through with him are immense. Still, I wouldn’t trade him for the world. He is my cousin, and I love him.
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There isn’t a government solution to every problem, and money can’t fix everything. However, when the vast majority of abortions are performed on college aged women, providing day care centers on campus so they can continue their studies just makes sense. If the Republicans who call themselves pro-life would support measures like these, then I think we could do a lot to lower the number of abortions performed. I think thats a goal everyone can support, pro-life or pro-choice.