Herman Cain: What did he say about abortion?
Herman Cain came under attack for his pro-life position. What did Herman Cain say exactly?
Republican presidential candidate businessman Herman Cain speaks at the Faith and Freedom Coalition forum, in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday.
(AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
Washington
Herman Cain’s been getting slammed by his opponents for statements he made in a recent interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan suggesting that his position on abortion is, um, not particularly coherent.
You can watch the interview yourself, but we’ve transcribed the relevant bits below:
MORGAN: What’s your view of abortion?
CAIN: I believe that life begins at conception and abortion under no circumstances - and here’s why
MORGAN: No circumstances?
CAIN: No circumstances.
MORGAN: Because many of your fellow candidates - well, certainly, some of them - qualify that
CAIN: they qualify it, but
MORGAN: rape, and incest, and so on.
CAIN: rape and incest
MORGAN: Are you honestly saying - a tricky question, i know
CAIN: a tricky question
MORGAN: You’ve had children, grandchildren
CAIN: Yes
MORGAN: If one of your female children, grandchildren was raped, you would honestly want her to bring up that baby as her own?
CAIN: See, you’re mixing two things here Piers.
MORGAN: Why?
CAIN: You’re mixing two things here
MORGAN: But that’s what it comes down to
CAIN: What it comes down to is not the government’s role or anybody else’s role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you’re not talking about 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.
MORGAN: But by expressing the view that you’ve expressed, you are effectively… You might be president. You can’t hide behind the mask of being the pizza guy. You might be president of the United States of America. So your views on these things become exponentially massively more important. They become a directive to the nation.
