Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC-BY-SA)
Mike Huckabee says he supports decision to deny abortion to 11-year-old rape victim
He says when an abortion happens, 'there are two victims.'
Feb 29, 2020, 9:36 pm*
Kate Conger
GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said in an interview Sunday that he did not support abortion, even in a case that involved the rape of a child.
During an interview on CNN's State of the Union, the former Arkansas governor said that he supported the Paraguayan government's decision to deny an abortion to an 11-year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped by her stepfather.
"Let nobody be misled, a 10-year-old girl being raped is horrible, but does it solve a problem by taking the life of an innocent child?" he responded when CNN anchor Dana Bash asked him about the case. Huckabee has previously stated that he would not support abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.
"I wouldn't even pretend that [rape] is anything other than a terrible tragedy," Huckabee continued. "But let's not compound the tragedy by taking yet another life. And I always think we sometimes miss the fact that, when an abortion happens, there are two victims. One is the child. The other is that birth mother, who often will go through extraordinary guilt years later, when she begins to think through the—what happened with the baby, with her."
Huckabee has said he would outlaw abortion if he was elected president, according to the Huffington Post. He also suggested that he would not rule out sending the National Guard or the FBI to shut down abortion clinics.
Huckabee also expanded on his views on transgender people who serve in the military during the State of the Union interview. The presidential candidate slammed transgender servicemen and women during the GOP candidate debate, saying, "The military is not a social experiment. The purpose of the military is kill people and break things."
In today's interview, he added: "Before the United States and the taxpayers pay for someone to have a transgender surgery, we need to make sure we're caring for the veterans who come back from Iran and Afghanistan without arms and legs. That ought to be our priority, not changing the gender of someone in the military."
Photo via Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)
*First Published: Aug 16, 2015, 5:11 pm
Kate Conger is a politics and cybersecurity journalist who currently writes for Gizmodo. Her work has previously appeared in BuzzFeed, Digital Trends, Real Clear Politics, San Francisco Examiner, and elsewhere. Together with Dell Cameron, she won the Society of Professional Journalists' award for Best Scoop in 2017 for a report on the leak of data about 200 million American voters.
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