Former President Jimmy Carter yesterday condemned all abortions and chastised his party for its intolerance of candidates and nominees who oppose abortion.
"These things impact other issues on which [Mr. Bush] and I basically agree," the Georgia Democrat said. "I've never been convinced, if you let me inject my Christianity into it, that Jesus Christ would approve abortion."
Mr. Carter said his party's congressional leadership only hurts Democrats by making a rigid pro-abortion rights stand the criterion for assessing judicial nominees.
"I have always thought it was not in the mainstream of the American public to be extremely liberal on many issues," Mr. Carter said. "I think our party's leaders -- some of them -- are overemphasizing the abortion issue."
WHAT HE SAID THEN:
Running for president in 1976 -- just three years after the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision -- Mr. Carter took a moderate stance.
"I think abortion is wrong and that the government ought never do anything to encourage abortion," he said during that campaign. "But I do not favor a constitutional amendment which would prohibit all abortions, nor one that would give states [a] local option to ban abortions."
WHAT HE SAID YESTERDAY:
Democrats must "let the deeply religious people and the moderates on social issues like abortion feel that the Democratic party cares about them and understands them," he said, adding that many Democrats, like him, "have some concern about, say, late-term abortions, where you kill a baby as it's emerging from its mother's womb."
Either Carter is secretly ill and his evangelical side is worried that his abortion stance will keep him out of heaven, or he read Freakonomics and realizes that abortion is eroding the natural Democrat base.
3 comments:
You can't really snipe at someone for changing an opinion he held nearly 30 years ago. What he said then as opposed to what he says now is a great tool when the quotes are three days apart, but we all change as we grow, so I doubt there is anything overtly political about Carter's new stance. Heck, even Wallace apologized to the little black girl in his later years. Carter was a weak leader, but he has always been a stand up guy. I think its hilarious that he changed his mind after reading FREAKONOMICS.
The quote is from 30 years ago, but he’s done nothing to suggest he changed his mind until yesterday. So did something make him recently change his mind or has he been afraid to speak his mind on this subject for years?
Many of those aborted citizens are registered voters in Chicago and Philadelphia. Carter should leave well enough alone.
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