{"id":119,"date":"2007-11-20T12:50:27","date_gmt":"2007-11-20T12:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html"},"modified":"2007-11-20T12:50:27","modified_gmt":"2007-11-20T12:50:27","slug":"romney-struggles-over-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html","title":{"rendered":"Romney Struggles Over Abortion Switcheroo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"romneychoice.jpg\"In Part 2 of National Review’s<\/em> interview with Mitt Romney<\/a>, the former Massachusetts governor defends his abortion turnabout, from adamantly pro-choice to adamantly pro-life. Interviewer Byron York argues that Romney’s habit of glossing over the particulars of his transformation continues to fuel doubts about his sincerity in the pro-life camp. Here’s the most telling exchange:<\/p>\n

But the reason skepticism remains is that Romney had seemed so decisively pro-choice as recently as the 2002 gubernatorial campaign. I read him the statement he made in a questionnaire sent to him that year by the National Abortion Rights Action League. \u201cI respect and will protect a woman\u2019s right to choose,\u201d he told NARAL. \u201cThis choice is a deeply personal one. Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not mine and not the government\u2019s.\u201d
\n\u201cThat sounds like a philosophical position,\u201d I said, \u201csomething that you came to because of your belief in the relationship of people to their government.\u201d
\n\u201c\u2018Philosophical\u2019 is perhaps the right term,\u201d Romney answered, \u201cin that it\u2019s very interesting philosophically to talk about something in an abstract manner, and then when you become governor, philosophy reaches reality. And I was asked to sign a bill that would take human life, and I simply would not do that and could not do that.\u201d Later, Romney also vetoed a bill concerning \u201cmorning-after\u201d contraception.
\nAs we talked, I began a question, \u201cIf I could separate stem cells from abortion \u2014 \u201c
\nRomney quickly interrupted. \u201cYou can\u2019t, can you?\u201d
\n\u201cWell, there are laws that deal with stem cells,\u201d I said, \u201cand then there is Roe itself.\u201d
\n\u201cWell, they both relate to the sanctity of human life.\u201d
\n\u201cBut your position was, as far as a woman\u2019s right to have an abortion is concerned, that you would protect that and that you believed that Roe should be protected.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m not sure what your question is,\u201d Romney said, growing visibly irritated. \u201cI changed my view. Is that so difficult to understand?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Byron York, God-o-Meter, and others political obsessives, the answer to Romney’s question is yes. We’ll find out in a couple months if pro-life voters feel differently.<\/p>\n


\n6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Part 2 of National Review’s interview with Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor defends his abortion turnabout, from adamantly pro-choice to adamantly pro-life. Interviewer Byron York argues that Romney’s habit of glossing over the particulars of his transformation continues to fuel doubts about his sincerity in the pro-life camp. Here’s the most telling exchange:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitt-romney"],"yoast_head":"\nRomney Struggles Over Abortion Switcheroo - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Romney Struggles Over Abortion Switcheroo - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Part 2 of National Review’s interview with Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor defends his abortion turnabout, from adamantly pro-choice to adamantly pro-life. Interviewer Byron York argues that Romney’s habit of glossing over the particulars of his transformation continues to fuel doubts about his sincerity in the pro-life camp. Here’s the most telling exchange:…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-11-20T12:50:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romneychoice.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dgilgoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Romney Struggles Over Abortion Switcheroo - God-O-Meter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Romney Struggles Over Abortion Switcheroo - God-O-Meter","og_description":"In Part 2 of National Review’s interview with Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor defends his abortion turnabout, from adamantly pro-choice to adamantly pro-life. Interviewer Byron York argues that Romney’s habit of glossing over the particulars of his transformation continues to fuel doubts about his sincerity in the pro-life camp. Here’s the most telling exchange:…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html","og_site_name":"God-O-Meter","article_published_time":"2007-11-20T12:50:27+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romneychoice.jpg"}],"author":"dgilgoff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html","name":"Romney Struggles Over Abortion Switcheroo - God-O-Meter","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romneychoice.jpg","datePublished":"2007-11-20T12:50:27+00:00","dateModified":"2007-11-20T12:50:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romneychoice.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romneychoice.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/11\/romney-struggles-over-abortion.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Romney Struggles Over Abortion Switcheroo"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/","name":"God-O-Meter","description":"A scientific measure of God-talk in the elections","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4","name":"dgilgoff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","caption":"dgilgoff"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/author\/dgilgoff"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}