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November 18, 2011 04:23 PM UTC

Romney once supported Personhood, then flipped, and then possibly flipped again

  • 20 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(Please don’t tell us you’re surprised – promoted by Colorado Pols)

As Mississippi debated then defeated a “personhood” amendment that would have granted legal rights to fertilized human eggs, multiple media outlets reported that GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney refused to clarify whether he supported the measure, which would ban not only abortions but also common forms of birth control.

But no media outlet that I could find reported that four years ago Romney said he supported what personhood backers and opponents call the federal equivalent of the Mississippi personhood measure.

The federal version would expand the definition of a “person” under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to include the unborn.

On August 6, 2007, Romney was asked on ABC’s “Good Morning America” about the following plank of the Republican platform, which, incidentally, remains in the national GOP platform to this day:

“We support a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make it clear that the 14th Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”

Romney was asked, “Do you support that part of the Republican platform?”

“You know, I do support the Republican platform, and I support that being part of the Republican platform, and I’m pro-life,” Romney told ABC.

But things changed in September of this year, at a GOP presidential forum in South Carolina. When Princeton Professor Robert George asked Romney specifically about the federal personhood measure, Romney flipped, saying he’d oppose it.

George asked Romney and other GOP candidates:

Section Five of the 14th Amendment expressly authorizes the Congress by appropriate legislation to enforce the guarantees of due process and equal protection contained in the amendment’s first section. Now, as someone who believes in the inherent and equal dignity of all members of the human family including the child in the womb, would you as president propose to Congress appropriate legislation pursuant to the 14th Amendment to protect human life in all stages and conditions?

Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich all said they would do so. But Romney replied:

That would create obviously a constitutional crisis. Could that happen in this country? Could there be circumstances where that might occur? I think it’s reasonable that something of that nature might happen someday. That’s not something I would precipitate.

Two months later, in October, Romney told Fox News’ Mike Huckabee that he “absolutely” would have signed an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution establishing that life begins a conception.

Journalists (from The New York Times, The New Yorker, and others) tried to get Romney to clarify whether his response to Huckabee meant that he supported Mississippi’s personhood amendment, but his campaign did not issue a clear statement.

For example, asked about personhood last week, Romney’s spokesperson Gail Gitcho told Politico’s Ben Smith, that Romney believes that life begins at conception and favors a “Human Life Amendment that overturns Roe vs. Wade and sends the issue back to the states,” but she stopped short of saying Romney opposes a state personhood measure. (A “human life amendment” would overturn Roe v. Wade, without giving legal protections to a fertilized egg as a person.)

Gitcho’s statement to Politico above, and her additional comments that Romney is “supportive of efforts to ensure recognition that life begins at conception” and that “these matters should be left up to states to decide,” leaves open the possibility for support of a Mississippi-style personhood amendment. In fact, that would be consistent with support for “efforts to ensure recognition that life begins at conception,” wouldn’t it?

Similarly, Romney’s own statement last month to a voter in Iowa, who asked if he wants to ban birth control, sheds no light on his view of the personhood issue: “I don’t,” Romney replied. “I’m sorry, life begins at conception; birth control prevents conception.” This is meaningless because, as you know if you follow the complexities of this issue, personhood supporters don’t oppose “birth control,” like condoms that don’t wipe out fertilized eggs. And they don’t use the term “birth control” for IUDs and some forms of the pill that do destroy fertilized eggs, or have the potential to do so. Those are called abortifacients. So Romney’s statement that birth control prevents conception is perfectly acceptable to the personhood crowd, and he used the same logic to veto a bill allowing the use of the morning-after pill in Massachusetts in 2005.

Romney’s changing position on the personhood issue, which may reflect his campaign’s concerns about polling on the issue as well as the experience of failed GOP Colorado Senate Candidate Ken Buck, has frustrated the folks at Personhood USA, which has backed state-based initiatives like the one in Mississippi.

“Romney made positive comments on Mike Huckabee’s show, but we’ve heard mixed messages,” Jennifer Mason, Communications Director for Personhood USA told me, adding that at one point in the past she viewed Romney a Personhood backer. “We would like to know if he does support Personhood. America wants to know specifically how he falls on the pro-life issues. We haven’t heard anything since the Huckabee show about his position on Personhood. We’re still waiting.”

Asked if appropriate changes with respect to the definition of a person in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would constitute “personhood” at the federal level, Mason said:

A federal personhood amendment is our ultimate goal, but it really depends on the language.  If it protects every human being , no matter of stage of development, size, location, gender or race, then we would support it. In fact that is what we are hoping for.

What if someone like Romney believes “life begins at conception” and also supports 14th Amendment protection of the “unborn?” Does that combination do the trick for Mason?

“I believe so,” she replied.

Like Personhood USA, Planned Parenthood also views changes to the 14th Amendment as the federal approach to personhood.

“Yes, it is fair to say that Planned Parenthood believes the effort to change the 14th amendment is a federal version of ‘personhood’ measures we’ve seen in the states,” said Monica McCafferty, Director of Marketing and Communications for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. “They are all seeking to provide constitutional protection to fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses at all stages of development, regardless of viability.”

So, until Romney stops hiding from journalists, and announces where he stands on personhood, reporters should no longer state, as as the Las Vegas Sun did Thursday that “he has never voiced explicit support for it.” or even, as Politco stated Nov. 9, that it’s unclear “he supports the Mississippi law or others like it.”

Instead, the most fair and accurate way for journalists to describe Romney’s position on personhood is to write that he’s flip flopped on the issue over the years, first for personhood on the federal level (in 2007), then against it (in Sept. 2011), and finally maybe in favor a state version (last month).

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20 thoughts on “Romney once supported Personhood, then flipped, and then possibly flipped again”

  1. When it comes to positions on abortion, Romney hasn’t just been all over the map, he’s been the topic’s Lewis & Clark, he’s the one who scouted out the map.

    What’s the biggest difference between Romneycare and Obamacare? Obamacare doesn’t pay for abortions.

    1. His journey on choice is beats Lewis & Clark’s, as a matter of fact.

      But it’s been well documented previously.

      I think this explanation of his thinking on personhood is new. I don’t think it’s been laid out like this before, surprising as that may be given the scrutiny of Romney. Hence the narrowness.

  2. Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

    Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

    Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

    Section

    4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

    Section

    5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

    Sure, let’s have the rest of the world come to the USA on vacation.  (Well, not Cubans but everyone else). With visas and travel papers.  

    While on vacation, let them conceive a pregnancy.

    At the moment of conception, of course, their child becomes a US citizen.

    Talk about one world government ….. Ohhhhh,  clearly that’s the hidden GOTP agenda. Make everyone everywhere a US citizen.   I don’t see how it helps, but wtfe.

  3. I think you’re accepting the anti-choice side’s language on this.

    Since there is a plausible post-conception mechanism of action that common contraceptive methods share which could prevent implantation, the opposition view that these methods “kill children” is internally logically consistent.  It does not however mean they cause abortions.

    The primary definition of abortion is “termination of pregnancy.”  Pregnancy does not occur until implantation and the woman and fetus share nutrients.  Therefore any device or medication which prevents implantation way be called “embryotoxic”, but “abortifacient” is inaccurate and slides the framing too much to one side.

    1. What many believe is that life, and hence pregnancy, begins at the moment of conception between sperm and egg. I’m not saying that’s what I believe necessarily, but you should at least be respectful (and accurate) about your opponents.

      1. … but you should at least be respectful (and accurate) about your opponents.

        Like, maybe, this time?

        Are you aware you sound ridiculous?

        Or, this time?

        It doesn’t make you look stupid, just corrupt.

        Or, how about this time?

        Once again (not that I expect you to comprehend)

        People believe all kinds of crazy things that aren’t true. Instead of pointing fingers, maybe you are the one who needs to show more respect. Maybe you are the one who needs to put forth the effort to form a more accurate understanding of the world, based on actual and verifiable evidence.

        I won’t be holding my breath in anticipation of you adhering to your own advice about being respectful and accurate, ArapaGoop. And I’m certain you won’t even consider my advice.

        Go on. Enjoy your bliss-inducing ignorance. It’s charming, in a toxic-bile sort of way.

        1. What a FuckTard!

          See, that’s disrespectful.  Conception + Life equal pregnancy is my medical opinion.  Goopy is allowed to present any biological evidence or medical text to contradict me, but the fact that the vast majority of conceptions do not result in pregnancies contradicts his thesis.

          “What many believe” may be a bunch of nonsense, and unless they can provide evidence in support of their position, explaining why it’s wrong is not disrespectful.

          1. that we need do a better job of caring for our children after they have been delivered into this cold cruel world but fat chance getting pro-life conservatives to support schools, food security and housing programs.

      2. Science is what is really known. For the people you describe, faith is merely what they decided to believe, without even the backing of their religion’s lengthy traditions or scriptures, in order to have their way on this issue. In short, they just made that up because it suits their true desire – social control.

        I’ll go with something based in fact, not convenience.

    2. I should have written that they call them abortiafcients.

      I wasn’t aware of the term “embryotoxic,” and I will add it to my posts as often as possible.

      Seriously, it’s useful to know about, and thanks.

      1. It represents a paradigm shift, as most people support birth control, and few would care about the prevention of implantation as they don’t have the level of fundamentalism to equate zygote with person, but if you tell them birth control causes abortions it makes them much more suspect.

  4. personal accountability centric conservative view and then you consider the tons and tons of food and resources that are needed to support one human being during their lifetime, you reach the inescapable conclusion that it is none of our business when a woman chooses to start her family. The staggering cost of raising a child coupled with vicious refusals by the pro-life crowd to support affordable health care and affordable education for all make their definitions of life meaningless.

    A true liberty loving conservative would support abortion boxes next to every Starbucks.  If a woman doesn’t want to start a family just yet then it is her call and there are no measurable losses to society for the fertilized egg that gets flushed.  One child dying from hunger isn’t worth the price of catering to the fantasies of the religious self-righteous.

  6. A fertilized egg is alive – that is a biological definition.

    A viable birth is a person – that is a legal definition.  (Note different cultures have different criteria for person-hood; I believe some Native Americans didn’t accord personhood till age 5 or so due to infant mortality etc)

    This is a very straightforward distinction that works quite well.  Following this to its conclusion, decisions on family planning or terminating a pregnancy are under the purview of the mom or parents as applicable; after birth the child has its own protections.

    For extra credit–are any of you legal experts aware of any legal tradition (Greco-Roman, English common law, Hammurabi etc) that accords legal rights to the unborn?  I have not seen this point addressed.

    Enjoy your weekend.

    2. Hebrew thinking, changing dictates throughout Christian history, and I believe Greek thought on the matter – it’s all out there for people who want to look, and it varies from conception (some Christian views) to a certain period during pregnancy (usually not too different from our current 3rd trimester standard), to the time at or just before birth…

      Legally, it was not really well codified until more recently.

  7. And I only see this as one flip. In 2007 he was for a federal amendment and now he wants states to be able to make abortions illegal.

    I’m not a fan of either stance though, so it doesn’t really matter for me. I’m against making abortions illegal at any level.

  8. of women’s health care stance when he was governor of Massachusetts as another flop?

    The real flop came when he was “absolutely” for the eggmendment before the vote in Mississippi and then did more waffling than an IHOP afterwards and tried to morph it into something more generic.  That was the moment that revealed his shallowness.

    His primary opponents might not consider it a problem but as we saw in the Bennet/Buck race, Bennet effectively attacked Bucks support for eggmendments.  It was a campaign gaffe on Romney’s part to suck up to the fundy crowd just like Buck did but the general population hates this kind of meddling in people’s lives.

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