Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has a long history as a pro-life advocate–but now, he’s under criticism by what many people say is taking it too far.
In Paraguay, a deeply Catholic country where abortion is illegal, the government refused to allow a 10-year-old girl who was raped by her stepfather to have an abortion. Huckabee said he agreed with the South American authorities.
“Creating one problem that is horrible–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?” Huckabee asked, on CNN over the weekend. “And that’s really the issue.”
He added: “Let’s not compound the tragedy by taking yet another life. 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 what happened, with the baby, with her,” he continued. “I just come down on the side that every life is precious. I don’t think we discount the intrinsic worth of any human being, and I don’t know where else to go with it.”
The girl in Paraguay, now 11, gave birth to a baby girl last week. Both her mother and her stepfather–the baby’s father–have been arrested.
Even many Americans who are staunchly pro-life agree that exceptions sometimes need to be made in cases of rape and incest. Huckabee is standing firm on his belief that a life is a life, and it doesn’t matter how the unborn child is conceived.
You decide: did Huckabee take his pro-life stance too far? Or is he simply being the best advocate possible for unborn babies?
