McCain Flips On Abortion: Won't Challenge Party On Rape, Incest Exceptions

ABC News:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is facing enormous pressure from social conservatives to ignore his repeated commitment to change the GOP's platform on abortion.

"If he were to change the party platform [to recognize exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother], I think that would be political suicide," Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, told ABC News. "I think he would be aborting his own campaign because that is such a critical issue to so many Republican voters and the Republican brand is already in trouble."

A senior Republican close to McCain told ABC News that building a more inclusive G.O.P. is a top priority for the Arizona senator.

But this adviser does not see changing the party platform to include exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother as necessary for achieving that vision.

Read the whole story: ABC News

Comments

[superduperandy]

While some groups are pushing for anti-abortion laws because they believe it is their duty to stop behavior that they see as wrong - I don't see how it is much further for them to pass laws to restrict many other thing such as: how people have sex, sexual preferences, religion, musical preferences, favorate colors, etc...

There are some groups who see it as evil and immoral to kill animals and they believe it is their duty to stop behavior that they see as wrong. Can conservatives see how this reasoning is identical to the above and only the specific selection of the immoral act is different? Perhaps we can all comprimise and outlaw all things that some people believe is immoral.

Let me be the first to declare that I believe it is immoral for the people of this country to refuse to send me all of thier money.

[FarOutFish]

This is a simple matter of Journalistic Ethics. A Reporter is required to remain neutral, a “Fair Witness”, who’s job is, like Dragnet’s Joe Friday, “Just the facts Maa’m”. She was fired and with any luck will go into a business more appropriate to her nature: Politics perhaps?

[disqo21]

now watch all those *terribly offended* female clinton voters come running back! don't worry... we're all open arms! you dont REALLY want that guy in the office, do you? Don't start losing your bearings!

[transendentilist]

If this is your way of courting Clinton voters, you fail miserably.

[transendentilist]

You have a lousy way of asking for support.

[NoahVail]

The Mancurian Candidate has flipped before:

McCain received "special" medical treatment from a Soviet physician. After he was out of the hospital, he continued cooperating with the North Vietnamese for a period of 3 years. He made radio broadcasts for the communists and met with foreign delegations, including the Cubans. He was interviewed by at least two North Vietnamese generals one of whom was Vietnam's national hero, General Vo Nguyen Giap.

On June 4, 1969, a U.S. wire service story headlined "PW Songbird Is Pilot Son of Admiral," reported one of McCain's radio broadcasts: "Hanoi has aired a broadcast in which the pilot son of the United States commander in the Pacific, Adm. John McCain, purportedly admits to having bombed civilian targets in North Vietnam and praises medical treatment he has received since being taken prisoner.

"The broadcast was beamed to American servicemen in South Vietnam as a part of a propaganda series attempting to counter charges by U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird that American prisoners are being mistreated in North Vietnam."

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=25722.0
http://www.usvetdsp.com/smith_mc.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFM1xqqTX_g

[PuffAndStuff]

So ... wondering, do Clinton supporters whom are threatening to vote for McBush/McSame in November get it now? ....

McCain isn't running as a moderate. He's a sell-out to the religious-right/far-right conversative base of the GOP. A hypocrite who offers nothing more than a 3rd term of GW Bush; a divider, not a uniter.

If you were to actually vote for McBush in the general you're not just a 'swing voter', or in someway voting indifferently as a display of your frustrations because your choice candidate didn't win the nomination, no -- what you are is someone voting against core Democratic principles. That said, if you do make such a silly/stupid decision for your November vote you might as well change the party you are registered with, as you must be a repug at heart.

[transendentilist]

I think it's you that aren't "getting," something. McCain didn't make this statement, his advisor did.

[OutsourcedAgain]

I keep asking myself why I don't hear the main stream media screaming FLIP FLOPPER like they did to Kerry. It couldn't be that all the talk about the MSM being run by liberals is just a smoke screen for the GOP to rally around. Could it?

[AmbroseChapel]

All due time. All due time.

[cdnnewsjunky]

If the Republicans have any sense at all, they will let the extremists go. Let them split and form their own useless party. They could call it the Ignorant Party.

[Americanium]

Good for you McCain!!! Show those bra burning feminists who would rather vote for you than Obama what it will be like under a McCain Presidency.

Roe v. Wade will be purged and retired to the pages of law school lectures.

Go on you Hillary star gazers. Go and vote on your bitterness for a failed Hillary candidacy.

I really want you to. So that we can a little more poetic justice.

Your movement and generation will be known for doing more to help the right wing agenda than any other event in modern America.

Bring it on bra burners!!!!!!!!

[transendentilist]

Someone needs a logic class.

[conservativeoriginalist]

McCain is an instance where his mother should have exercised her "right" to choose.

[KillgoreTrout43]

So women who are victims of rape and mothers dying trying to deliver a baby is less important than the GOP's platform???????????????????????
That is just plain sick.

[cdnnewsjunky]

Yep, some Republicans think their precious opinions are more important than human suffering. They're all about "me".

[transendentilist]

I fully agree. Fucking disgusting. That is so sick it's beyond words.

[MrKnuckles]

What this blog post doesn't tell you is the REAL story..... that because John McCain apparently did not understand that the issue of abortion law was the subject under discussion McCain had suddenly and excitedly screamed, "Yeeeehaw", and attempted to perform a flip, but that he actually didn't quite fully complete his acrobatic move and kinda bonked his head, rather loudly in fact, on the unforgiving marble floor of the Capital Building.

The flip was apparently attempted by McJohnny after he misunderstood a mumbled cue whispered to him by his current majordomo, Joe Lieberman, and for some unknown reason was under the sadly mistaken assumption that his esteemed cohorts in the Senate were just about ready to vote on a bill which would have permitted all Republicans elected to high public office to freely indulge in rape and incest!

After recovering somewhat from smacking his cranium Senator McCain dizzily expressed his hope that certain exceptions would be written into the law, such as, no abusing Senate pages and getting caught at it, no diddling of pregnant great-great-grandmothers, screwing any friends or family members if they're associated with the oil business, trying it on with well armed party members when they're out duck hunting, attempting to sexually assault any lobbyists because they're known to rape back, (unless of course they're willing to be rogered as part of the deal), or committing any assignation with Ann Coulter, for obvious public health reasons.

[MajorKong]

Even if I thought McCain was a great candidate (and I don't) - I still don't want 2 more Scalias on the Supreme Court, a foreign policy establishment run by the American Enterprise Institute, a federal judiciary staffed with Federalist Society clones and a federal bureaucracy filled with Liberty University graduates.

[conservativeoriginalist]

Don't worry about "2 more Scalias"...McCain has a 20 year track record of despising "Scalia" judges; his rhetoric is nothing more than lip service to try to lure the disenfranchised conservatives (the real ones, not the Bible thumpers) back to the party.

[mal0980]

Why should we be surprised by this McCain is Pro Life and always has been, he won't challenge his party on abortion and other issues as well. This is a message to all the women who support Hillary that they need to get behind Obama, if you think McCain will look out for your choices or will, then you are mistaken vote for Obama in November.

[newshawk14]

I think one can accurately say of McCain, that he's never met a principle that he wouldn't compromise.

[MTGradwell]

Oh COME ON! The Real McCain is bad enough, you don't need to conjure up imaginary flip-flops in order to defeat him.

McCain Flips on abortion? Where, in the article, does it say that he did that? What has McCain said that would lead you to believe he's recently changed his stance even slightly?

Won't Challenge Party On Rape, Incest Exceptions? When did he say that he wouldn't ?

The ABC news article you're quoting from says : McCain POISED to flip (my emphasis), and even that's stretching the truth beyond breaking point. All we learn from the article is that a senior republican with ties to McCain (Brownback) doesn't think that McCain will revise the party's stance. We learn no reason for this opinion, which may be no more than wishful thinking on Brownback's part. We don't know if Brownback has ever discussed the issue with McCain. If ABC had used quotation marks, 'McCain "poised to flip"', to show that they were just relaying an opinion, that might have been justifiable. But they didn't; and the Huffpo headline has an even greater disconnect from reality than the ABC one.

[jayburd]

He's already flipped on campaign finance, torture, tax cuts, etc. What's to say he won't flip his position on this, THE core issue that holds together the modern Republican party?

[NatteringNabob]

We also learn that McCain is facing a lot of pressure from the pro-theocracy, er, social conservative wing of the party to leave the platform as it is. And those folks wield a lot of power and influence in the party.-

You can parse the headlines and the article itself all you want (I agree the HuffPo headline is, at best, misleading.) The real story, IMHO, is that McCain is between a rock and a hard place on this issue. If he acquiesces to the pro-theocracy crowd, he extends his already-epic string of flip-flops and alienates the moderates in the party. If he practices what he's been preaching since 2000, he alienates the religious extremists, which comprise a big chunk of the party.

However it plays out, it will be entertaining. And I'll be enjoying it with a big tub of popcorn.