I first met Herman Cain in 2003. He was running as the conservative in a Senate primary in Georgia against Republican Congressmen Mac Collins and Johnny Isakson. He came to our offices at Human Events to give us an interview, which I just found online. Cain told us he supported a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution. I came away from that interview with the firm belief that Cain was pro-life. I have always thought so ever since.
But last night, Herman Cain appeared on Piers Morgan’s CNN show to discuss his candidacy. When asked about abortion, he gave a surprising answer that I’m having a hard time parsing. He said, first of all, that he’s pro-life in all circumstances. When asked about a rape exception, and asked whether he would want his granddaughter to “bring up that baby as her own,” he retreated to the position that it’s up to the family. Here is the relevant excerpt:
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MORGAN: No circumstances? …Because many of your fellow candidates – or certainly some of them – qualify that….Rape and incest….If one of your female children or grandchildren was raped, you would honestly want her to bring up that baby as her own?
CAIN: You’re mixing two things here, Piers…What it comes down to is it’s not the government’s role or anyone else’s role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidence, you’re not looking at that big a number. So what I’m saying is, it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide….I shouldn’t try to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive decision….The government shouldn’t be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions they need to make.
Mediaite has the video here.
There are at least two ways of reading this: The one that makes more sense, and the one that seems to fit the context better.
The one that makes sense is that Cain is discussing whether he’d want his granddaughter or daughter to be forced to raise the baby. (Despite the rhetoric of abortion proponents, there are other options besides “raising” a baby and killing it.) This isn’t ever explicitly said, but it’s not contradicted by anything in the subsequent conversation. It is mildly hinted at when Cain says that Piers is confusing two separate issues. It is also a coherent way of reading Cain’s answer, that doesn’t contradict everything he’s said previously.
But the way of reading this that fits the context better is the one that makes less sense in a broader context. That is, despite multiple prior statements to the contrary, Cain is actually saying he’s personally pro-life, but does not believe in restricting abortion under the law. This also contradicts Cain’s prior statements on abortion — on Meet the Press this weekend, and possibly even at the top of the excerpt above.
To add to the confusion, there is a third way of reading this, a variation on the second. Cain was actually saying that he supports a rape and incest exception.
I don’t know which reading is correct, primarily because he has been so incoherent on this issue in the past. Go back a few months to this interview with John Stossel. I promise, your brain will hurt as you watch this:
