Romney and Roe: A Comparison

     Mitt Romney has held many positions on abortion. He was pro-choice in his run for senate in Massachusetts, definitely not pro-choice when he considered a run for governor in Utah, pro-choice again when he ran for governor of Massachusetts, and came around to "calling" himself pro-life (his words) while eyeing the Republican presidential nomination. Since his conversion, however, his actions have been far from reassuring. He forced hospitals to provide abortifacients, apparently violating his belief that life begins at conception and should be protected, and oversaw the implementation of a healthcare plan that provided for abortions with co-pays of between $0 and $100. In the Republican primaries he strenuously maintained that he never was pro-choice and announced that his current position was that abortion was wrong except in cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother, but that the decision to allow or regulate abortion should be left to the states. He further stated that the only way this could be done would be to have the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, since the Supreme Court was, in his mind, the ultimate arbiter of Constitutionality. It should be noted that, since the Supreme Court hasn't even overturned Dred Scott v. Sandford, it is highly unlikely that it would overturn Roe v. Wade at any point in the foreseeable future. Since the only way that decision was changed was to amend the Constitution, and Romney opposes the Human Life Amendment, Romney's public position, for all intents and purposes, is pro-abortion, whatever private qualms he may have had.