More from Heyyyy Abbotttttt!!!!
No abortion. No way! No how! It would have been less slimy for him to use those words instead of dancing in the muck like he is now doing.
Ask a straight question, get a straight answer. Right?
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news...ds-4665080.php
On abortion, Abbott's answers defy standards
By Peggy Fikac
July 15, 2013
AUSTIN - The language of abortion is usually clear-cut. Then you talk to someone like Attorney General Greg Abbott.
It's clear that Abbott, aiming to be Texas' next governor, opposes abortion. But when you ask the standard question - whether he would allow exceptions - he doesn't give the standard answer.
Are there exceptions?
"If you're really pro-life, you want to save every life, but that also includes the mother's life," he said in an interview at his in-laws' San Antonio home, where a front room is decorated with crosses and icons of the Catholic faith he shares with his wife, Cecilia, and her family. "The life of the mother is just as precious as the life of the child."
Does that mean he'd allow an exception to his anti-abortion stand to save the mother's life?
"In a way, but you're in a way kind of mischaracterizing the word. It's not like an exception," he said. "What both the medical community needs to do, and the pro-life community supports, is doing everything we can to protect the life of the mother."
Cecilia interjected "If you need to ... do procedures to save that mother, that doesn't mean aborting. It just might mean that that might be the result of it, a child's life might be the result of it, but you don't stop a child's life."
Asked if he opposes abortion in cases of rape or incest, Abbott started, "Well, again....." and Cecilia said, "We just don't discriminate against a child because of their beginnings."
Abbott concurred: "We shouldn't discriminate against a child." Cecilia added, "But I think we absolutely have a responsibility to help that person who goes through that process."
Many viewpoints
It's not the way political reporters and the people they cover usually talk about this.
As political shorthand, candidates are often asked about "the three exceptions" - allowing abortions in cases of rape, incest or to save the mother's life. Sometimes they give a plain answer. Sometimes they skirt the question. Sometimes their views change, such as when Gov. Rick Perry in his presidential race decided he no longer could allow for rape or incest exceptions.
It takes a bit more to pin down a candidate who doesn't follow the format, but then again, it's probably more in line with the way people think about abortion.
There are people who oppose abortion but have heartache over the idea of a woman being forced to carry a baby conceived through rape or incest. There are people who favor abortion rights, but have great sorrow over it.
There are Texans who have a tough time with the way this is handled in public dialogue - including this summer, when the Texas Capitol became a powder keg of emotion after Perry put proposed abortion restrictions before lawmakers in two special sessions. They want to know how the issue will be handled by the governor who succeeds Perry.
'A full life process'
"People try to make this a binary choice and try to set up polar opposites, and it's not really the way that it is," said Abbott. "Real life is more nuanced than that. You know, two sides try to fight each other, but in reality, our goal, our real goal, is to express a greater sense of love and inclusion and support for all life."
And then, like Cecilia, he said the thing that some Republicans are criticized for not saying, or not doing enough of: "This involves more than just the birthing process. This is a full life process. Our responsibility is to support a woman in any way we can - whether it be through child support, through the adoption process, through other medical challenges she may deal with. And we want to be as supportive as we possibly can."
Hope, perhaps, for those who would like to see as passionate a discussion about cherishing the born as the unborn. But only if Abbott, with fleshed-out proposals, makes that clear cut.
