Huckabee, Jon Stewart Debate Abortion (VIDEO)

Mike Huckabee went on John Stewart last night to debate another controversial topic: abortion.

Huckabee's last appearance on the late-night show made a splash, after he and Stewart spent the entire segment engaged in a heated debate over gay marriage.

This time around, Huckabee -- a Southern Baptist minister and former Republican presidential candidate -- was invited to chose the topic.

WATCH:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mike Huckabee Exclusive Interview Pt. 1
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

WATCH:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mike Huckabee Exclusive Interview Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

WATCH:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mike Huckabee Exclusive Interview Pt. 3
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

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Comments

[superstition]

Obama deputy campaign manager abandons DOMA & DADT as priorities
http://www.americablog.com/2009/07/obama-deputy-campaign-manager-abandons.html

"After two weeks of the Obama White House reeling over the gay backlash caused by the anti-gay DOMA brief, which compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia, we now have...

First, that the burden for doing anything pro-gay in the remaining three and a half years of the Obama administration is now shifted to Congress. Obama has no role whatsoever, and no power to influence anything, even though he's still the leader of the free world.

Second, the three big gay rights priorities that Congress should be focusing on do not even include what have organically become the community's top two priorities: repealing DOMA and Don't Ask Don't Tell. They're not even mentioned in the Obama deputy's essay."

[easarsfield]

1. it should be women debating this topic. I for one am tired of white males crusading for the unborn. I would love to see how they would react if Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter were discussing what men should and shouldn't be allowed to do with their bodies.

2. I agree with John that both sides need to come together and work on ways to prevent abortion, ie sex ed and birth control. But good luck getting the Christian right on board with that. They feel that both encourages promiscuity and oohhh that's wrong ! They love to target Kathleen Sebelius and her ties to Dr. Tiller but the irony is that during her tenure as Gov of Kansas, abortions actually fell 8.5% due to the health care reforms she initiated that included adoption incentives and sex ed. Go figure.

[Tulka2]

Loved your note. How's this for easy... It's a baby when the woman says she is a mother. It's the mother's commitment that is sacred, not the tissue dependent upon her body. When a woman commits to a child, she becomes a mother, whether that is at the first missed period or further on in the term.

We need to ask men who argue with us on this issue when was the last time they sincerely and humbly thanked their mother. I am a Buddhist and we see that mother love is the purest in the universe. This is the sacred thing. This is woman's work, as you say. Only the beloved men in our lives have opinions we hear. Government must bug out. In a way, it was better just before Roe v Wade. That's when we were meeting in each other's homes and teaching each other how to do menstrual extractions with the wonderful, new at the time, sterile, plastic kits. Safe, sanitary. The courts and doctors knew they better get a handle on it fast or men would have nothing to do with it. Male panic and stories about "back-street abortions" and the need for "safe and legal abortions" = Roe v Wade, thirty years of killing doctors and oppression.

[easarsfield]

thanks moma!

With my personal belief system (very in line with Buddhism), I would probably never be able to terminate a pregnancy. I say PROBABLY because I have never been put in a situation that would warrant that sort of decision, and I do not feel it is fair to decide for others what is right and what is wrong when it comes to their own bodies.

I guess I get angry at the men that staunchly support the pro-life movement because they will never know what it is like to carry a child and therefore are not qualified to judge women on this issue.

[Tommygun264]

It's so odd to me that the vast majority of the pubs - the ones so dead-set against single-payer health care because they believe it will mean putting government agents between patients and their doctors, taking away the freedom of the patient to consult with his/her doctor and dictate the type and quality care the patient receives. The keep ranting against single-payer because they say all the power will be in the hands of the government. Yet when it comes to abortion, that is exactly what these people want to do = they want the government to forc the woman to give birth without regard to the mother or child's health.

HYPOCRISY, pure and simple.

[Tulka2]

The Republicans say two things at the same time about a public option or single payer. Both of them cannot be true.

1. Single payer/public option will be terrible and will get between a person and their doctor. (You have pointed out the hypocrisy as regards abortion on that one.)

2. The public option will be so good and people will flock to it and that won't be fair to the insurance companies.

Which is it, do you suppose, that they really believe? I think it's number 2. and i would love to see the death of health care for profit. They are ghouls.

[Tommygun264]

Life begins when you start minding your own business,

[separatingwheatfromchaff]

The dear departed famed comedian Bill Hicks, speaking of abortion remarked,"I have wiped entire universes..... off my belly........ with a dirty sock".

[TchoupitoulasCanal]

As an Obstetric nurse, all I can say is that we need to move past 'debating' abortion and working towards ways to either:

(1) reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place
(2) have a serious discussion about adoption as an option for women/families in crisis (if they desire)
(3) remove the stigma surrounding adoption and make the process easier for folks that want to do it

I know it sounds easy, but the 'debate' has done nothing to improve the field of women's reproductive health nor has it answered the most distressing question: how do we best help women who are dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, and how do we reduce this population overall?

[Tulka2]

While i have sympathy for you pov, my sister, and appreciate your obvious sincerity, we have allowed the right-wing to frame the debate. I think we have not been nearly outraged enough. The language of the religious right has corrupted the whole of the American Christian church. "Unborn" That's the most Orwellian word in existence. "Pro-life"... who isn't? The silly idea that humans have anything at all to do with "creating" life. As if. Life began millions and millions of years ago and all we do is pass it on...or not...our choice.

The part of it that is sacred is that our mothers choose to carry any of us to term. We need to thank our mothers most sincerely for bringing us into life. This is the proper relationship to sacred.

Meanwhile, i have worked for your three points my whole life.

[TchoupitoulasCanal]

You make a very salient and well-reasoned point. Thank you so much for sharing it....I really appreciate hearing other points of view, especially on an issue as important as this one!

[kmdippenger]

Huckabee says "Noone is allowed to own another person"....I say that until women have total equality in this world we HAVE to allow abortions to remain legal. Maybe after we achieve a more perfect society we will be able to eliminate the need for a woman to have an abortion.

A man like Huckabee would not understand this

[Gidster]

Huckabee believes that a blastocyte is a person......

It is intellectually dishonest at best.

The Bible states life begins at first breath, I believe a fetus becomes a person when it can survive out of the womb; Zygotes and embryos fail that basic test, and until the 30 week mark, so do most fetuses.......

[Tulka2]

Do you know the word, homunculus?

It's a hilarious word and concept. Homunculus are tiny, tiny men in a man's sperm. It was the medieval concept of how men made babies in their bodies and women were merely incubators. Some modern men seem not to have heard the word. These damned women won't hold still and incubate the little babies these men want to impart. The scandal! All these little homunculus without a warm home.

[AmericanDreamWarrior]

Thank you! Exactly my thoughts! If it cannot survive outside of the womb, its only the potential for life.

If a fetus needs my body to survive then how can its rights supercede mine? Am I to be held hostage to appease someone elses morality? I believe in reincarnation and that the body is simply a shell to host the spirit. This is one of the reasons we need to continue to seperate church from state!

When we can eliminate r@pe and ince$t, educate young people on the exact consequence of se× and until we can view se× as a natural part of the human experience instead of this puritanical sense of s!n, then we can have a different discussion.

Since I believe this is an issue of control, how about this scenario for the sake of discussion, let's say we make adoption, manditory? Everyone over the age of 21 MUST, by law adopt! Would YOU like the govt telling you when to start your family, taking away your choice? Chew on that for a while! In the mean time, to every avid pro-life activist, I have a question for you all? If every one of you haven't adopted, why not? Your @rgument would have more credibility if you did.

Try doing some research of countries where abortion is illegal and think about the horror and fear women experience and then ask yourselves, is this something you'd want for your mother, daughter, sister?

"Judge not lest ye be judged!"

[George Paul]

You talk about women's rights, but what about that female baby which was aborted gruesomely? What about her rights? These babies go through horrendous methods of abortion! Here are some of the methods - http://www.lifesitenews.com/abortiontypes/

[Sepulchre]

You post that like most of us that are for it don't know these things or haven't seen the pictures. We have, and we still believe in a woman's right to choose.

Here is some science for you. A fetus is completely dependent on the mothers blood, tissue and nutrients, so it is part of the woman's body separate DNA or not. A fetus is not a fully formed independent organism until it is able to survive on its own. An embryo can be frozen then later defrosted and still be viable, if you did that to a human it would be dead. Pregnancy has all the same symptoms as a parasitic condition.

This I am going to gross you out with pictures way of arguing isn't winning anyone over, I don't know why you all continue to do it. It isn't even an argument.

[Sepulchre]

You post that like most of us that are for it don't know these things or haven't seen the pictures. We have, and we still believe in a woman's right to choose.

Here is some science for you. A fetus is completely dependent on the mothers blood, tissue and nutrients, so it is part of the woman's body separate DNA or not. A fetus is not a fully formed independent organism until it is able to survive on its own. An embryo can be frozen then later defrosted and still be viable, if you did that to a human it would be de.ad. Pregnancy has all the same symptoms as a parasitic condition.

This I am going to gross you out with pictures way of arguing isn't winning anyone over, I don't know why you all continue to do it. It isn't even an argument.

[Gidster]

It does not have rights until the third trimester, when it becomes illegal to abort unless the mothers life is in danger, the fetus has fatal or profound birth defects, or the mother is a rape or incest victim.

There are protections in place.

They just are not as stringent as you would wish them, and give the fertilized egg full human status.
Do you then want criminal action against the mother if she miscarries? or if the placenta does not seat properly?

[DukeNukem007]

Obviously the religious are entitled to air their view points in a civil atmosphere. But why are they bothering too? Jesus said my "Kingdom is not of this world" ....Christians would be better served (and so would their god) if they confined their efforts in the realm of their religious mythology.

[queenofcore]

Huckabee is flat out wrong, he is not a woman "he" should keep his mouth shut, he is not GOD and or at the very least my GOD and has no right to tell any woman what they should do, when they get pregnant. let each person deal with there decision they way they want to. Creat a supportive and educate the young as to the responsiblities of sex. That is it. thank you again to Jon Stewart he is one of my favourite people right now along with our President.

[Tulka2]

The only thing better would've been if when he agreed to let Huckabee debate this subject if Stewart would have invited Samantha Bee to sit in too. It always makes me do a quiet burn to hear men debate... as if... right?

[AmericanDreamWarrior]

Exactly some of the loudest decriers (sp?) of abortion are men. Since this is an issue that only affects women (please spare me the "fathers right debate" when the consequence of rape is that the MAN gets pregnant, we'll talk!)

My husband has written many letters to editors of several different papewrs stating that point. He and I disagree on when life begins. He believes it begins at conception (and though he's highly spiritual he is not religious) and I believe it begins when the fetus can sustain its own life without me, he also believes that men should have zero input on this debate. Though he believes what he does he believes that all women should have a CHOICE!

I have many health issues and were I to get pregnant today and carried to term, I would have roughly a 10% chance of surviving the pregnancy. That is in essence a death sentence. Shouldn't this be my CHOICE? How can any other person, govt or G0d impose this on me? Why does this uncertain, unformed entity supercede my RIGHT TO LIFE?

[rosal]

I find it so interesting that the religious right are always so concerned about the unborn, BUT, after the child is born they go out of their way to criticize the mother that is on Welfare, the one that receive Food Stamps, because according to them, people need to pull themselves up by their boot straps. And the criticism for the Government for providing food and shelter for the child and mother is never ending. How many righties I have heard "I don't want my taxes to go to help "lazy people" Not always is the "lazy people" who needs a hand, and we all know that.
Huckabee mentioned that making a decision for economic reasons is not right, I hope all these conservatives start walking the talk.

[Tulka2]

.... and their own entitlements are perfectly legitimate always, aren't they?

The abortion issue has been such a corrupting issue for the Christian community. They used to care about following Jesus' instructions to care for the poor. That's what Jesus talked about most if you count up his quotes. Judaic law in Jesus' time said a woman could get an abortion forty days from her last missed period. Jesus didn't say a word about it. Jesus talked again and again about serving the poor.

Please call your Senators and Congressional Representatives asking them if they support a public health option, but also ask your minister if he thinks health care is a human right. Ask him/her to say so from the pulpit. Gandhi would have. Martin Luther King would have. We don't need to reinvent the wheel here. We know that if women have access to good health care, abortion rates go down.

[AmericanDreamWarrior]

Last year I remember watching Larry King and this repugn@nt radio talk show host (wish I could remember his name) actually said the words, Health care is not a right bit a priviledge.

I'm glad that you brought up the Jesus compassion thing. I've seen Christians rally and defend war, show contempt for the poor, lust after wealth, power, listened to them preach one thing and then hypocritically do another, spout coded rasc!st rhetoric and seen them bare their teeth when speaking about gay marriage and adoption as if it was something they thought they could catch. I have witnessed them sit in judgment of others and act in such a sickeningly moral superior manner. And these hateful people are supposed to be our "moral" yardstick?

Wonder if he were here today, what would Jesus say? Think he'd be a tad disappointed at how he's been represented by such a callous, self serving group of people that have been terror!zing this world for the last 2000 years, all in his name?

What's truly sad is there are some really good people out there that call themselves Christians and are really embarrased by the evangelicals!

Maybe this is why our founding fathers were smart enough to insist on the seperation of church and state?

[Tulka2]

In Soviet Russia, just before it fell apart, the average thirty-year-old woman had three abortions because, you see, abortion is the cheapest form of birth control. Cheap if you don't count mother suffering and pain.

This is why i find it hypocritical of the religious right to not only oppose birth control, but also, like Huckabee, oppose a public option ammendment to health care reform. The logical conclusion is that his real goal is to make lots of little, white, Christian babies. The logical conclusion is that Mike Huckabee doesn't have much real faith in his own religion or culture. He seems to know that if the women he knows have informed choices, they will not choose to continue his culture and religion. I see his point.

[Gidster]

Don't forget to keep the infant mortality rate high!

There are 45 countries with lower rates, this includes ALL of the Social Democracies, and Slovenia and Taiwan!!!

The World Factbook (ISSN 1553-8133)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate_(2005)

[Pettit]

To me it's puzzling that on one hand they want to protect the unborn and on the other hand most of this folks are pro-war and for the death penalty. If you appreciate human life: shouldn't you appreciate a tad more the lives that have developed more than cell?

[MathIsTruth]

That's what happens when "every life is precious" is just a catch phrase without any depth.

If a person sits down and really THINKS about what makes human life precious, it rapidly stops being so obvious that a microscopic glob of goo is a precious human life.

And it rapidly starts becoming a lot MORE obvious that the death penalty and vanity wars are not such great ideas.

Huckabee has wonderful mannerisms, but an intellect and a soul that are about a half millimeter deep.

[Tulka2]

I think the fundamentalist leaders keep their flocks purposely ignorant of theology. The way they keep saying "innocent life" for example when their own bitterly fought theology says babies are full of "original sin". Only the born and baptized have a chance of being innocent, but we give them too much credit.

The truth is it's way more personal than theology for most of them. They know in their own little pea-pickin' hearts that if the women they know, their own mothers, sisters, daughters, actually had an informed choice about whether or not to deliver babies into these fundamentalist religions, they would not. They don't trust their own women and they are probably right not to, from their pov.

[HPdevotee]

I've found that anti-choicers who use the phase 'innocent life' usually have the mind-set of 'punishment pregnancies'. It has nothing to do with 'the..the..babies!' but everything to do with controlling a woman's sexuality through penalties.

These are the very same people who will whine that s.ex has 'consequences'. It would seem that their whole intent is to make sure that a woman is forced into a life-threatening situation to 'teach her a lesson'.

And it seems to be most prevalent in religious circles where rigid gender roles and expectations are the most glaring.

[easarsfield]

the unborn can still be 'saved' by coming to Jesus.

They don't think there is hope for criminals, and many quote the bible when arguing for the death penalty.

and according to the Old Testament, the following acts are grounds for capital punishment: murder (Exodus 21:12), kidnapping (Exodus 21:16), bestiality (Exodus 22:19), adultery (Leviticus 20:10), homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13), being a false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:5), prostitution and rape (Deuteronomy 22:4), and several other crimes.

[Gidster]

Leviticus also calls for your death if you wear a cotton/poly blend shirt, or eat a cheeseburger!

While in Judges 21:10-24, calls for the murder of every man, child and non virgin woman, who is then to be forced into sexual slavery.

Numbers 31:7-18 again demands the death of children, and non virgin women, and the sexual slavery of virgins.

Exodus 21:7-11 condones the selling of your daughters into sexual slavery.....

Seems that the right to life only applies to certain people........

[I once had a Crysknife]

Innocent life is the difference.

[Gidster]

Zygotes and embryo's are not lives, just potential lives.

[Tulka2]

How's this for easy?

It's a baby when the woman says she is a mother? It's the passing on of life that is sacred, not the tissue.

Pick up the phone or go see your mother and thank her from the bottom of your heart for making the sacrifice to pass life on to you. She didn't have to. Or did she? Would she have carried you to term if she had a fully informed choice? Good question, eh? I think this is at bottom what bothers many men. The do not trust the women in their lives. These are woman's sacred duties and work. It has nothing to do with any men but the beloved men in individual women's lives. Certainly not the business of governments and laws.

[macohmz]

I don't feel that life has intrinsic worth. In a society like this where the one and only value is the love of money. how can human life have worth? Every life is measured by cost and the ability to make money.
Do you think think those CEOs who shut down factories to drive up the value of their stocks believe human life has intrinsic worth? Do you think that George Bush was thinking of the value of human life when he bombed the hell out Iraq? I've seen the photos of the shredded bodies of Iraqi kids and adults.
How about Erik Prince? The CEO of Blackwater. He comes from a wealthy evangelical home. Yet look at the wanton murder this man's crew has committed. All for the love of money. If people truly believed their life had intrinsic worth would they still abuse themselves and others? I could go on but I won't. I made myself depressed.

[Tulka2]

Life is cheap is not a value judgement, is it? It's a simple fact of life in the U.S.A. The fundamentalists mask their disregard of human life with the red-herring of the abortion issue.

The abortion issue has completely corrupted Christian debate. Under Judaic law in the time of Jesus, a woman had forty days from her last missed period to get an abortion with no sin attached. Jesus did not say one word about it and yet he spoke over and over of the need to serve the poor. Where is that debate? Mike Huckabee has the choice to talk about anything on The Daily Show and he chooses this. He is against a public option. He is against birth control outside of marriage. He is a fundamentalist power monger as surely as any Mullah in Terran.

[hereitis]

as i have said before and will say again, the issue is not really about abortion. the issue is really about women's sexuality and the republican right wing/religious fanatics to have control over a woman's sexuality and her body.

[truthartbeauty]

yes, they loooooooooooooove to mind everyone else's business. total hypcrites.

[scottyknows]

Or.

It's about innocent life.

I'm amazed when I see people screaming in the street for the right to take innocent life.

Death penalty? Not so innocent.

[Tulka2]

Who is "screaming in the streets"? I don't think the state has the right to take any born life. That's a contract i make with my state, not with any god. I don't believe in capital punishment because, unlike so many Christians in the modern world, i believe in redemption. I see people change all the time. Off topic, btw.

[lauram]

What about babies killed in Iraq? Aren't they innocent? When does innocence disappear? after the trip down the birth canal?!???!?

[GrkAm]

Oh, blah, blah, blah!

Once again, if Huckabee is opposed to abortion; he shouldn't have one. Every person's situation is different. We have never been a population of "one size fits all".

The Republicans are always cutting programs for children, the poor and the elderly--the least of those among us that can defend themselves. THAT is true hypocrisy.

[Tulka2]

I really like Jon Stewart, but it made me do a quiet burn to see two men on t.v. talking about a woman's right to do with her own damn body as she sees fit. Stewart would have been truly wise to invite Samantha Bee to sit down with them.

[Lorianne]

"... the least of those among us that can defend themselves"

Interesting turn of phrase.

[Tulka2]

You are referring to the Orwellian "unborn" we must suppose. Feel sorry for your toenails. Humans do not "create life". We pass it forward...or not... as women's bodies give them the natural ability to choose which men will reproduce and that's the real rub isn't it? If women choose, fundamentalist religions disappear.

Jesus talked about serving the poor more than any other issue. The abortion debate has corrupted Christian debate. Under Judaic law in the time of Jesus, women had forty days to abort without any sin attached and Jesus never said word one about it. Btw....? Look it up your self. You have google.

[Tulka2]

....and before you respond with phoney web sites and the phrase "many atheists and feminists are pro-life....? Phooey to that too. We see how you spring to the defense of religion at every opportunity. We know who you are.