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Mitt Romney Like Ronald Reagan on Abortion Switch
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has drawn suspicion from the right for his flip-flopping on abortion, but he’s not the first candidate to change his view on the issue before seeking the White House. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Dick Gephardt and Al Gore also shifted on abortion as they set their sights on the presidency. When Romney was running for the Senate from Massachusetts against Ted Kennedy in 1994, he took a pro-abortion stance in the decidedly blue state. "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country,” he said during a debate. "I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, we should sustain and support it.” Romney also was a supporter of abortion rights when he ran successfully for Massachusetts governor in 2002.
But he said he had a change of heart in 2004 during the debate over stem cell research, when the governor met with experts from Harvard at his State House office.
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In an interview with NewsMax Magazine for the April issue, Romney said: "It was during that discussion, which related to something called embryo farming, which is taking donor sperm and donor eggs, creating embryos, experimenting on them and then destroying them in 14 days, that it came home very forcefully to me that the Roe v. Wade mentality had cheapened the respect for human life in this country. "And for that reason, I made it very clear that I am pro-life.” In 2005, he declared: "I am pro-life. I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother.” Ronald Reagan had a similar shift in views on the abortion issue, according to a Los Angeles Times article headlined "Romney isn’t the first to flip on abortion.”
In 1967, then-California Gov. Reagan signed a liberal abortion law legalizing the procedure in cases where a woman’s mental as well as physical health was at risk. The number of abortions in California soared after the bill was passed, and Reagan came to regret singing it, the Times reported. By the time he ran for president in 1980, Reagan had declared his support for a constitutional amendment prohibiting all abortions except to save the life of a woman.
During the 1980 campaign, Reagan’s GOP primary opponent, George H.W. Bush, opposed a constitutional amendment restricting abortion. But by the time he ran for president in 1988, then-Vice President Bush said he opposed all abortions unless the mother’s life was endangered. Dick Gephardt, elected to the House from a heavily Catholic district, said in 1977: "By ruling … that a woman may legally have an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, the Supreme Court has sanctioned the denial of the unborn’s rights.” But in 1986, two years before running for president, Gephardt said he opposed a constitutional amendment, the Times noted, and in 2003 he declared: "The sanctity of a woman’s right to control her own destiny is a moral force of its own.” Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, opposing Gephardt for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, criticized Gephardt’s shift on abortion and other issues, and went on to win the nomination. Similarly, Al Gore’s stance on abortion shifted to the left as he eyed the White House. In 1987, he stated: "During my 11 years in Congress, I have consistently opposed federal funding of abortions,” which he called "arguably the taking of a human life.” By 2000, when Gore was running for president, he declared: "My position has changed. I strongly support a woman’s right to choose.” It’s too early to tell what impact Romney’s shift on the issue will have on his presidential candidacy. Some have questioned his sincerity on the issue. But pro-life State Sen. Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina who supports Romney, said: "He feels passionately that the value of human life begins at conception. "The idea that he might have changed his mind is very appealing to me, because we’re not going to win that debate unless people change their minds and think it through.”
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
2008 Presidential Race Inside Cover Stories
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