Mitt Romney Says He Was Never Pro-Choice on Abortion as Mass Governor

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Mar 10, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Mitt Romney Says He Was Never Pro-Choice on Abortion as Mass Governor

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 10
, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Mitt Romney is likely one of several Republican candidates who will vie for the GOP nomination and the right to take on pro-abortion President Barack Obama. For his 2008 attempt at representing Republicans, Romney caused consternation by talking about his position change on abortion and he is doing it again.

Appearing on the "Imus in the Morning" radio program with Don Imus this morning, Imus asked Romney to revisit his position change.

"Well, you know, I never really called myself pro-choice, but I did say when I was running for governor that I would keep the law as it was," Romney said.

But that appears to contradict what he said at the 2007 GOP Iowa straw poll debate.

"Look, I was pro-choice. I am pro-life. You can go back to YouTube and look at what I said in 1994. I never said I was pro-choice, but my position was effectively pro-choice. I changed my position. And I get tired of people that are holier-than-thou because they’ve been pro-life longer than I have," he said then.

American Spectator writer W. James Antle noticed the Imus comment and said Romney could hurt his own chances of getting the nomination in 2012 by revisiting his former position in favor of legal abortions.

"Romney’s problem has never really been that he changed his mind. It has been the fact that he can’t resist insulting people’s intelligence about his past record when discussing his current position," Antle writes.

"This is a perfect political climate for Romney to downplay abortion and run as an economic problem-solver. But if he continues to pretend he was never pro-choice or play word games about his previous stance, abortion will plague his candidacy again in 2012," Antle continues.

For pro-life advocates, overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion decision so abortion can again be prohibited has always been a hallmark of a true pro-life stance.

During a January 2008 campaign stop in Nevada, Romney said he lined up with the pro-life movement against Roe.

"I am pro-life, and I would welcome a time when the people of America concluded that abortion was wrong, but that’s not where America is, and that’s why I believe that the next right step for America is for the court to overturn Roe v. Wade," he said. "That would return to the states and to the elected representatives of the people the ability to set their own laws related to abortion."

Romney converted to a pro-life position after years of supporting legalized abortion.

He also said during the 2008 presidential campaign that he supports a federal human life amendment as a second goal after first toppling Roe and letting states ban abortions again.

Any Republican taking on Obama would face a president who has compiled a lengthy pro-abortion record.

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