I avoided the GOP debate. Had endured enough the day before when I took the car in for a safety check and sat, among other customers, in a waiting area and watched CNN’s broadcast of Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. Heard what must be done, ending the mindset that leads to war, and the words, “negotiate” and “negotiations.”
Eventually, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient said:
As Commander-in-Chief, I have not shied from using force when necessary. I have ordered tens of thousands of young Americans into combat. I have sat by their bedside sometimes when they come home. I’ve ordered military action in seven countries.
I rested my head in my hands more than once. When Obama directed that we contact our representatives in Congress, I nearly groaned. And nearly groaned again when this instruction was followed by another, that we tell these congressmen and women “what is best in us and what we stand for, so that we can leave behind a world that is more secure and more peaceful for our children.” As if we’re to believe that the USA always practices diplomacy first and uses violence only as a last resort. As if the world’s children are really valued. As if our voices are heard, are EVER considered.
The man sitting next to me said, “Amen.” I groaned.
Back to the debate. I decided I couldn’t watch the Thursday-night freak-arama. Better to read about it the next day, the Tweets, quotes, commentary. Obviously, I missed some hilarious performances. Trump’s truthful stating of the obvious: that our system is one gigantic fraud. The examples he provided about his donations to candidates. What he demanded in return for this largesse.
One of my sons asked if I knew what Huckabee said about his position on abortion. No, I hadn’t seen anything but Trump, Trump, Trump, and more Trump.
So, I hit Google and read the transcript. When Huckabee was asked about his favoring a constitutional amendment banning abortions, he disagreed, saying he’s taken a “bolder” stance:
I think the next president ought to invoke the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the constitution now that we clearly know that that baby inside the mother’s womb is a person at the moment of conception.
The reason we know that it is is because of the DNA schedule that we now have clear scientific evidence on. And this notion that we just continue to ignore the personhood of the individual is a violation of that unborn child’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights for due process and equal protection under the law.
Whoa. Just think: If Huckabee’s president, a zygote could have due process, citizenship, and equal protection while in the fallopian tube, before cell division occurs, even before implantation in the uterus.
Makes me wonder if Huckabee’s considering more daring measures, like Second Amendment rights for a fetus—that at the moment of conception a fetus could hold and bear arms. Maybe stand his/her ground.
Think of the precious ultrasound images too. “Look, I think that’s a penis.”
“No, silly, it’s an Uzi.”
Missy Comley Beattie has written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. She was an instructor of memoirs writing at Johns Hopkins’ Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Baltimore. Email: missybeat@gmail.com.
“In one simple quote, Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B. sums up the hypocrisy in the ‘pro-life’ movement:
“I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”