Ben Carson: Abortion Is Like Slavery
For someone who has studied life with such modern tools, Dr. Ben Carson has a very ancient way of thinking about abortion.
The 2016 presidential candidate sat with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press Sunday and explained further his stance on a woman's right to choose, this time hinting that terminating a pregnancy is akin to enslavement.
The two began the interview with the news that Carson has surpassed Donald Trump in the Republican polls, despite his reputation for having low energy to which he replied, "I will tell you in terms of energy I'm not sure that there's anybody else running who's spent 18 or 20 hours intently operating on somebody."
He also spoke a bit about his "volatile" past (as a teenager, the neurosurgeon said, "I would go after people with rocks, and bricks, and baseball bats, and hammers. And, of course, many people know the story when I was 14 and I tried to stab someone. ... I'm a very different person now."), and his views on weapons control ("we should never compromise the Second Amendment.").
"Does life begin at conception?" Todd then asked.
"I belive it does," Carson replied. "... In the ideal situation, the mother should not believe that the baby is her enemy and should not be looking to terminate the baby. ... Things are set up in such a way that the person in the world who has the greatest interest in protecting the baby is the mother. We've allowed the purveyors of the division to make mothers think that that baby is their enemy and that they have a right to kill it. Can you see how perverted that line of thinking is?"
To clarify he offered, "... Think about this. During slavery –– and I know that's one of those words you're not supposed to say, but I'm saying it. During slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave. Anything that they chose to do. And, you know, what if the abolitionist had said, you know, 'I don't believe in slavery. I think it's wrong. But you guys do whatever you want to do'? Where would we be?"
Even in cases of rape and incest, he continued, his long-term solution is to overturn Roe v. Wade. His exception, he said, when the life and health of the mother must be considered. "If in that very rare situation it occurred," he said, "I believe there's room to discuss that."
Watch the full segment, and Ben Carson Says 'No' to a Muslim President, in the videos below.
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(Photo: Katie Kramer/ Getty Images)
