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Bachmann Challenges Gingrich on Abortion in Last Debate before Iowa Caucuses

Dec 17, 2011

By Dave Andrusko

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Michele Bachmann

As befits his status as the front-runner, former Speaker Newt Gingrich was on  the receiving end last night of a barrage of withering attacks from his fellow pro-life GOP presidential contenders in the final debate before the January 3 Iowa caucuses. That included what’s been politely described as a “sharp exchange over abortion” with Rep. Michele Bachmann.

The back and forth began when Fox News’s Chris Wallace  said, “Congresswoman Bachmann, you say that Speaker Gingrich has a ‘inconsistent record on life’ and you singled out comments he made recently [in an interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper] that life begins with the implantation of a fertilized egg, not at conception. What is your concern?

Bachman responded that “the fact that the Republican Party can’t get the issue of life wrong. This is a basic part of our party. Just last night we gathered in Des Moines to talk about this issue, because it’s that crucial to our party.” She then specifically challenged Gingrich on several issues, including defunding Planned Parenthood, partial-birth abortions, and support for candidates who are not pro-life.

Gingrich responded that he had a 98.5% pro-life voting record while in Congress, and that “I have consistently opposed partial-birth abortion. I, in fact, would like to see us go much further than that and eliminate abortion as a choice. And I said as president I would de-fund Planned Parenthood and shift the money to pay for adoption services to give young women a choice of life rather than death.”

In addition Gingrich said, “I don’t see how you are going to govern the country if you are going to run around and decide who you are going to purge. The fact is, twice when I was speaker we moved to end partial-birth abortion. Clinton vetoed it. We worked very hard. And [former Pennsylvania Senator] Rick Santorum has been a leader on this issue.”

On the question of when life begins, Gingrich said, “I believe that life begins at conception. The conversation we’re having which is an ABC interview, I was frankly thinking about proposing a commission to look at fertility, because I think there is a challenge with what happens to embryos, who I think should be regarded as life because by definition they have been conceived. I am against any kind of experimentation on embryos. And I think my position on life actually has been very clear and very consistent.”

In Part Two, I discuss how former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney responded to a query about his position on abortion.

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Categories: Politics