CARSON’S TAKE ON ABORTION

 On NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, GOP presidential contender — and recent Iowa frontrunner — Ben Carson compared women who decided to have abortions to slaveowners who “thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave.”

The discussion came after host Chuck Todd asked if life began at conception, to which Carson answered “I believe it does.” Todd asked whose right should be superseded — the mother or the child.

“In the ideal situation, the mother should not believe that the baby is her enemy, and should not be looking to terminate her baby,” Carson said. “Things are set up in such a way that the person in the world who has the greatest interest in protecting her baby is the mother.”

Carson said “purveyors of a vision” have been allowed to “make mothers believe that baby is her enemy and that they have a right to kill it. Can you see how perverted that line of thinking is?

Todd asked what happens if someone has an unwanted pregnancy — should they have a right to terminate it?

No. Think about this. During slavery — and I know that’s one of those words you’re not supposed to say, but I’m saying it. During slavery, a lot of the slaveowners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave. Anything that they chose to do. And, you know, what if the abolitionists had said “I don’t believe in slavery, I think it’s wrong, but you guys do whatever you want to do.” Where would we be?

In 2013, Carson compared the Affordable Care Act to slavery, saying it was the worst thing that happened to America since slavery, adding “it is slavery, in a way.”

Slavery was a brutal system that trapped millions and millions of people in bondage for over 200 years. Obamacare is a law that Congress passed which has helped 17.6 million people get health insurance through the private insurance market and existing government health care programs.

Earlier this year, Carson revived the conspiracy theory that Planned Parenthood concentrated their clinics in black neighborhoods as a “way to control the population.”

Todd then asked about an interview with Yahoo! News’ Jon Ward wherein Carson would not say whether he wanted to see Roe v. Wade overturned. “I favor life. That’s what I favor,” Carson had said in response to questions about the case. “It means that we will try to protect human life because all people in our country have a right to the protections of the law,” he said describing the Supreme Court justices he’d appoint — those who “believe in life” and “understand that a baby in the uterus is a human being and is protected by the Constitution.”

Carson went farther than that on overturning the case on Sunday. “I would like to see it done in the right way,” he said, again mentioning an examination of the judges he would appoint, “how have they behaved, who have they associated with, rather than what they say in an interview.”




On the court case, Carson said “ultimately I would love to see it overturned.” Asked whether that would contained exceptions, Carson said “I’m a reasonable person, and if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, I’ll listen.” To Carson, an abortion in the case where the life or health of the mother is threatened was “extraordinarily rare situation” but that if that “rare” situation occurred “I believe there’s room to discuss that.” He said he “would not be in favor of killing a baby” that came about because of rape or incest.

He pointed to the “many stories” of people who have led “useful lives” after being born as a result of rape or incest.

Ben Carson has surged ahead of Donald Trump in recent Iowa polls, with Chris Wallace calling him the frontrunner there, citing an 84 percent favorability rating in a Quinnipiac poll on Fox News Sunday.

Iowa Republican voters find many of Carson’s extreme statements attractive, according to a recent Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll. However, one area of his biography that repels them is the fact that he conducted research using tissue from aborted fetuses.

Chuck Todd asked Carson about his sometimes inflammatory rhetoric, such as about the Holocaust and guns and his accusation that Obama is a psychopath.

“As people get to know me, they know that I’m not a hateful, pathological person like some people try to make me out to be,” he said.

Chuck Todd asked why he so easily went to Nazi metaphors, like referring to the Gestapo when talking about health care. Carson said some rabbis had told him recently that he was “spot-on,” and blamed the media for being shallow and not thoughtful about his full meaning.

[cross-posted from thinkprogress]

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TEA BAGGER TELLS STATE TO IGNORE ROE V WADE

“The federal courts don’t have the authority to make us kill babies,” according to Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Randy Brogdon. “Are the Supreme Court justices going to come down to Oklahoma and make us stop?”

Brogdon, a former state senator who once called for Oklahoma to form its own militia separate from that National Guard — and who previously cast doubt upon the Pledge of Allegiance because he objects to the line “one nation, indivisible” — offered his interpretation of the Supreme Court’s lawful authority on Friday. One day earlier, he signed a fundraising email making a similar pitch. “As Chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, I call on the Governor and legislators to completely end the practice of abortion in Oklahoma,” Brogdon wrote in that email, adding that the state should “[s]hut Planned Parenthood down immediately for their illegal actions, and prosecute the abortion doctors who violate their oath to ‘do no harm.'”

The party chairman’s call to simply ignore court decisions protecting reproductive choice seeks to escalate many of his fellow Republicans’ attacks on legal abortion. Other states, however, have already gone so far in restricting abortion that it’s not clear that Brogdon’s proposal is as much of an escalation as it immediately appears to be.

Mississippi, for example, passed a law that, if upheld by the Supreme Court, will close the state’s last abortion clinic. A similar Texas law seeks to shut down many of the clinics in that state by imposing expensive obligations on clinics and difficult-to-obtain credentialing requirements on doctors who perform abortions. North Dakota enacted a law that could effectively ban abortion six weeks into pregnancy (a federal appeals court recently struck that law down, albeit reluctantly).

These laws, especially the Mississippi and Texas ones, place a premium on the cleverness of abortion’s opponents. These two states passed what amount to sham health laws — laws that appear, on the surface, to be intended to protect women’s health but which actually do little more than limit access to abortion. As one federal judge explained, “there is no rational relationship between improved patient outcomes” and the additional burden the Texas law places on abortion doctors.

Brogdon’s preferred tactic, by contrast, appears to be attacking abortion with a blunt object. He’s not looking for a clever workaround to what remains of Roe v. Wade, he just wants to outright ban abortion and prosecute doctors who perform it.

In the process, Brogdon also appears willing to openly defy court orders protecting reproductive freedom. It would be a major escalation in tactics if a state chose to openly defy the courts. It could also lead to a potentially dangerous struggle between the states and the federal government.

If Oklahoma were to “prosecute the abortion doctors,” as Brogdon suggests, the first question would be whether Oklahoma’s state courts would be willing to go along with this tactic — and whether a jury would be willing to convict based on a law that would almost certainly be struck down by federal courts. Assuming that the state courts did play along, the lawfulness of this conviction would ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court — or, barring that, by a lower federal court upon a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

The events that would follow, if Oklahoma refused to obey a federal court order commanding them to release the incarcerated physician, could resemble a miniature Civil War. The doctor would remain physically in the state’s custody, most likely in a state prison guarded by state employees. Yet, while Brogdon is correct that the Supreme Court justices themselves wouldn’t “come down to Oklahoma and make us stop,” the federal government is fully capable of mustering superior force against a state that openly defies a court order. Just ask former Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus.

Nevertheless, such a standoff may be acceptable to Brogdon, with his doubts that the United States is, indeed, “one nation, indivisible.

[Cross posted from thinkprogress]

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HE'S GONNA DO WHAT?

At a speech before the National Right to Life Committee’s annual convention in New Orleans Friday morning, 2016 Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio compared the fight to limit women’s access to abortion to the fights to end slavery and for women to win the right to vote.

Right Wing Watch reported that Rubio called the historic Roe v. Wade decision “historically and egregiously flawed” and said that he would fight to restrict women’s right to choose “at home and around the world.”

“Sometimes in contemporary American life, we come to believe that all the great causes are over, that the past generation fought all the important battles: abolition, the Civil Rights Movement, women’s suffrage,” he said to the assembled crowd.

“But it’s not true,” he said. “In fact, one of the most important battles is the one that you are engaged in now.”

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ABORTION BAN OVERTURNED

A federal judge permanently struck down North Dakota’s six-week abortion ban on Wednesday. The so-called “fetal heartbeat” measure, which used to represent the harshest ban in the nation, had already been temporarily blocked from taking effect while the legal challenge against it proceeded.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland ruled that the law is “invalid and unconstitutional” and “cannot withstand a constitutional challenge,” pointing out that Roe v. Wade guarantees the right to abortion up until the point of viability.

Six week abortion bans seek to ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat can first be detected, even though that typically occurs so early that some women don’t even realize they’re pregnant yet. This type of restriction is so radical that many Republicans won’t sign onto it, signaling the beginning of a larger split within the anti-choice community. Although lawmakers in at least five different states considered fetal heartbeat bans this year, none have been able to advance.

Arkansas is the only other state that’s been able to pass a harsh abortion restriction based on the fetal heartbeat framing. After widespread outcry, that measure ended up being amended to a slightly less restrictive 12-week ban — but it hasn't fared any better in the courts. Last month, a federal judge struck it down.

The decision is a victory for women in North Dakota, who face huge barriers to abortion services. There’s only one abortion clinic left in the state, which has been struggling to remain open amid anti-choice attacks. Thanks to the hostile environment surrounding reproductive rights, many women in the state actually assume that conservative lawmakers have succeeded and abortion is already illegal.

Although abortion rights supporters have recently won several legal victories against harsh bans, it’s important to remember that other serious threats to women’s access to abortion often fly under the radar. States have successfully enacted a complex web of restrictions targeting clinics and providers that don’t grab as many headlines as more obviously harmful laws do. That’s why anti-choice groups tend to split over six-week abortion bans — the leaders of the movement know they’ll have more success with an incremental strategy to chip away at abortion rights when no one is looking.

“The court was correct to call this law exactly what it is: a blatant violation of the constitutional guarantees afforded to all women. But women should not be forced to go to court, year after year in state after state, to protect their constitutional rights,” Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “We hope today’s decision, along with the long line of decisions striking down these attempts to choke off access to safe and legal abortion services in the U.S., sends a strong message to politicians across the country that our rights cannot be legislated away.”

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