Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has released a new ad bashing fellow GOP hopeful Herman Cain on abortion after comments the businessman made last week that made him appear to not be solidly pro-life.
Cain has advanced the pro-life cause throughout his political career but came under fire this past week when he gave an interview to CNN on Wednesday in which he used typical “pro-choice” language about government not making abortion decisions for women that applied, depending on the listener, to either abortions in the case of rape and incest or abortion policy in general. Either way, pro-life advocates have been disappointed following the comments and they have called on Cain to clarify the comments — which he did in a short message on twitter later in the day saying he is “100% pro-life.”
Now, a new ad from the Santorum campaign questions Cain’s pro-life position.
“Now, the most troubling news of all is Herman Cain’s newly discovered pro-choice decision on abortion,” the narrator says. Quoting Cain, the ad continues, “It comes down to— it’s not the government’s role or anybody else’s role to make that decision.”
The ad features a slew of conservative and pro-life activists ranging from former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes to Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America to Bob Vander Plaats, a top Iowa activist, who say Cain’s position is essentially “pro-choice” because of the CNN interview.
“Herman Cain, the more we learn, the more concerned we become,” the ad concludes.
However, a group of black pro-life leaders released a statement today to LifeNews saying he is pro-life and basing that call on “his clear Pro-Life position and years of participation to end the staggering abortion rate in the Black community and in the general population of America.”
“We the undersigned stand in full support of Mr. Cain’s stated Pro-Life position of affirming life from conception until natural death; his strong support for a Human Life Amendment; and his history of involvement in the Pro-Life community’s fight for life. Cain’s pro-life stance, coupled with his history of support both financially and otherwise, clearly represent that Mr. Cain is a bona fide Pro-Life candidate,” they say in the statement. “Here are a few examples of Mr. Cain’s active involvement in issues related to the Pro-Life concerns: during his 2004 campaign for Senate in Georgia Mr. Cain made life one of his main issues, he signed Georgia Right to Life’s affirmation which is one of the more strict affirmations in the nation. And it is widely reported that he has made contributions exceeding a million dollars to promote the Pro-Life message in the Black Community.”
They conclude: “The life issue in the Black community is a matter of urgency especially for those of us who are deeply concerned about the specific targeting of our community by Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers in the abortion industry. We have determined that Herman Cain’s position on abortion is consistent with those within the Pro-Life community.”
The signers of the statement incPastor Stephen E. Broden of Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas; Catherine Davis of the Restoration Project, Day Gardner of the National Black Pro-Life Union, Walter Hoye of the Issues 4 Life Foundation, Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; and Pastor Dean Nelson of the Frederick Douglass Foundation.
After his interview with CNN, Cain released a statement saying he is fully pro-life, saying he will appoint the kind of judges who would be inclined to consider reversing Roe v. Wade, and adding that he opposes taxpayer funding of abortions or the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
He followed that up with a Fox News interview where he said he repeatedly that he wants abortions to be made illegal and he then told CBN’s David Brody that he would support a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution to afford legal protection for the 1.2 million unborn children who die in abortions annually since the Roe v. Wade decision.
