“I’m in the same position now that I was 12 years ago, when
I ran for mayor, or as mayor, which is personally opposed to
abortion, don’t like it, hate it, would advise that woman have an
adoption, rather than an abortion. And I will help you find the
money for it. …But it’s your choice. It’s an individual right.
You get to make that choice.”
— Rudy Giuliani, CNN interview, April 5, 2007
THERE ARE TWO THINGS Republican Presidential Candidate Rudy
Giuliani wants voters to know about where he stands on
abortion.
Number one: He hates it.
Number two: If elected president, he wouldn’t do a thing to
restrict it, and, based on recent comments, would force taxpayers
to fund it.
Seasoned political observers will recognize Giuliani’s verbal
gymnastics as the “personally opposed, but…” position on
abortion, which is short for, “I am personally opposed to abortion
but wouldn’t impose my beliefs on a public with diverse moral and
religious views.”
Speaking in New Hampshire in late April, Giuliani was even more
candid about his position, saying, “I think you can be personally
opposed to it, hate abortion, respect somebody else’s conscience
who might make a different decision…”
It is a position long-employed by abortion advocates as they
attempt to reconcile their personal opposition to abortion with
their public support of it.
Recently, however, “personally opposed, but…” (or variations
thereof) has emerged as the default position on abortion for a
number of prominent “pro-choice” politicians seeking the
presidency. Back in 2004, Democratic presidential nominee John
Kerry insisted he was “personally opposed” to abortion; Hillary
Clinton has called it “a sad, tragic choice”; and Barack Obama has
described it as a “personal tragedy.”
Strong words, especially considering that all three have 100
percent ratings in support of abortion from Planned Parenthood
(America’s leading abortion seller), and all four (including
Giuliani) embrace perhaps the most extreme abortion policy: public
funding.
Then there’s Mitt Romney, who in 2005 insisted he was
“personally pro-life,” even as he pledged not to alter
Massachusetts’ liberal abortion laws if he were re-elected
governor.
So, what’s the political calculus behind this contradictory
position on abortion?
“Personally opposed, but…” is the predictable result of two
conflicting trends in abortion politics today. While the abortion
lobby has seen its influence grow over the past few years
(abortion-rights groups donated three times as much as pro-life
groups during the 2006 election cycle), polls reveal an
increasingly pro-life electorate that’s less receptive to the
extreme agenda of the abortion movement (Emily’s List, the largest
abortion political action committee, won just two of 19 competitive
House races it funded in 2006).
“Personally opposed, but…” attempts to capture the middle
ground between these two sharply contrasting realities. A
pro-abortion politician can appease the powerful abortion lobby by
voting for abortion, then, with a wink and a nod, employ words like
“tragedy” and “morally opposed” to signal to voters that he is a
compassionate person who understands that the decision to have an
abortion is, as Senator Clinton has said, “a profound and
complicated one.”
Yet, while “personally opposed, but…” seeks the reasonable
middle ground on abortion, it contains a glaring and fundamental
flaw.
When somebody says he “hates” or is “morally opposed” to
abortion, he begs the question: Why, exactly, do you hate/oppose
abortion? The answer, certainly, is that he believes what is being
aborted is a human being deserving of at least some of the natural
human rights all people possess. He may also believe — if he
acknowledges the developing consensus in the academic community —
that abortion can have adverse effects on the physical and mental
health of women.
If he didn’t consider the unborn child a human being and/or
didn’t think that abortion hurt women, there would be little reason
for him to oppose it, especially with words like “wrong,” “hate”
and “tragedy.”
In other words, if the child in utero were merely a “cluster of
cells” and if the effects of abortion on women were “mainly
positive,” as Planned Parenthood insists, why would anyone oppose
it on a personal, or any, level?
No one would, of course, which is what makes the “personally
opposed, but…” position so dishonest (and why it is in a very
real sense a more deplorable position than that of the abortion
advocate who fails to recognize the essence of abortion).
To acknowledge the grave injustice of abortion yet still promote
its perpetuation is like saying: “I’m opposed to slavery but think
it ought to be left to each plantation owner to decide (a popular
position, incidentally, during the age of slavery), and in the
meanwhile I’ll pass laws re-affirming the practice and forcing all
taxpayers — even those who are “personally opposed” to slavery —
to pay for it.”
In the end, the “personally opposed, but…” position on
abortion cloaks itself in reason and compassion; but, it is merely
a rhetorical device that shields the politician who refuses to
follow through on in public what he purports to believe in private.
As Thomas More says in A Man For All Seasons, “…when
statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of
their public duties…they lead their country by a short route to
chaos.”
An April Gallup Poll asked Americans an open-ended question
about the most important quality they are looking for in the next
president. A third of respondents (a strong plurality) stated that
“honesty” and “straightforwardness” are paramount. Sadly, as more
prominent politicians embrace the “personally opposed, but…”
position on abortion, voters may find few honest candidates remain
when it comes to the fundamental issue of life and death.
