Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said this week that as president he would allow individual states to keep abortion legal, two weeks after telling a national television audience that he supports a constitutional amendment to ban the procedure nationwide.
In an interview with a Nevada television station on Tuesday, Romney said Roe. v. Wade should be abolished and vowed to “let states make their own decision in this regard.” On Aug. 6, he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he supports a human life amendment to the Constitution that would protect the unborn.
“I do support the Republican platform, and I do support that being part of the Republican platform, and I’m pro-life,” Romney said in the ABC interview, broadcast days before his victory among conservative Iowa voters in the Ames straw poll.
The two very different statements reflect the challenge for Romney, who has reinvented himself as a champion of the antiabortion movement in recent years and is seeking to become the conservative alternative to former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination.
Take it from ime personally. I know Fred Thompson. I have met Fred Thompson.. I have talked with Fred Thompson. I have looked
Fred Thompson in the eyes, although I had to really look up to
do it! Fred Thompson does not waffle, wiggle, or waver. What you see is what you get. Fred is the Man for the Job!
I’m not sure this is an essential contradiction. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, we would return to the pre-existing situation, which was 50 states with state laws on the topic. Romney says he also supports a constitutional amendment, which would legally invalidate state laws, as opposed to Roe v. Wade, which has unjustifiably invalidated state laws. The constitutional amendment process does not involve the President, but only the Congress and state legislatures, and is years away from being enacted, even if we began now. Allowing state legislatures to handle the problem would be a much quicker process.
The strictly constructionist view is that the Constitution says nothing about abortion, so it is a matter for the states.
What was Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts?