Reading over Mitt Romney’s evolution intelligent design on abortion rights, I believe he deserves a stiletto to the groin for disingenuousness, pandering, and lack of principle. Let’s start with him telling Mike Huckabee that he would “absolutely” support a constitutional amendment defining life as beginning at conception. That seems straightforward, right? If you can pass an amendment to the Constitution like that, then it will be illegal to have an abortion unless you can argue it was in self-defense. So, that would bypass the Supreme Court and all the state legislatures, and the only legal abortions would be to save the life (or perhaps, but not necessarily, the health) of the mother.
But then Romney says that he is favor of exceptions for rape and incest. Then he says that he is unaware of any laws about abortion that would be part of his agenda. Okay, so passing a constitutional amendment isn’t part of his agenda but he’d “absolutely” sign it. He’d be “delighted” to sign a bill banning abortion after the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, even though it isn’t on his agenda.
How about this comment?
“I hope to appoint justices to the Supreme Court that will follow the law and the constitution. And it would be my preference that they reverse Roe v. Wade and therefore they return to the people and their elected representatives the decisions with regards to this important issue.”
Okay, so he says he’d appoint Supreme Court Justices who favor reversing Roe v. Wade, and then he says that people’s representatives would decide the issue, and then he says that he’d sign a bill from those representatives banning choice, and he’d even sign a federal ban (i.e., an amendment to the Constitution). But none of this would be part of his “agenda.”
Is that called “leading from behind”?
Listen up. There are nine Supreme Court Justices. Four of them are staunchly in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade. Their names are: Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito. There are five Justices in favor of upholding Roe v. Wade. Their names are: Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
If one of the five Justices who favor upholding Roe dies or retires in the next four years and is replaced by a Romney nominee, there will be a 5-4 majority on the court to overturn choice. Romney has promised this.
And if Roe is overturned, that means that Congress can pass a law banning abortion. It wouldn’t be easy, but Republican majorities could pull it off if they eliminated the filibuster or won 60 seats in the Senate. Even if the federal government can’t ban choice in the short term, all Republican legislatures on the state level would ban it.
So, Romney can prevaricate all he wants, but he still needs a swift kick in the groin.
