As much attention as Donald Trump’s ugly and misogynistic attacks on Rosie O’Donnell and Megyn Kelly got during Thursday night’s Republican debate, Mike Huckabee may have said something that was at least as loony and out of touch. You may recall that last weekend, Huckabee declared that if he became president, he would unilaterally declare abortion illegal–and if necessary, send in the National Guard and FBI to raid abortion clinics. Well, People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch noticed that Huckabee doubled down on that stance on Thursday night. He declared that if he were president, he would invoke the Fifth and 14th Amendments to declare that fetuses are people.
Huckabee has long favored a constitutional amendment that would make abortion illegal except to protect the life of the mother. When Chris Wallace asked him about that stance, Huckabee let it be known that he wants to go further than that.
“Chris, I disagree with the idea that the real issue is a constitutional amendment. That’s a long and difficult process. I’ve actually taken the position that’s bolder than that.
A lot of people are talking about defunding Planned Parenthood, as if that’s a huge game changer. I think it’s time to do something even more bold. I think the next president ought to invoke the Fifth, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution now that we clearly know that that baby inside the mother’s womb is a person at the moment of conception.”
Huckabee went even further on a special post-debate edition of “The O’Reilly Factor,” with Wallace as guest host. Watch here.
Huckabee argued that if a president were to unilaterally declare that the fetus is a person, he would be upholding the Constitution. As he saw it, “the time has come for us to act like a civilized people.” He’s well aware that it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. However, he thinks the pro-life movement has been “playing defense” for too long.
As I said last week, this is easily the most extreme stance that a presidential candidate has ever taken on abortion. Huckabee has given a full-throated endorsement of the personhood movement, which seeks to gut Roe v. Wade by declaring that fetuses are “persons” under the Fifth and 14th Amendments. As PFAW points out in its dossier on the personhood movement (viewable either here or here), a number of “mainstream” pro-life groups oppose personhood because they know such a move would be a disaster waiting to happen. A number of personhood amendments at the state level were worded in such a way that they could not only outlaw many forms of birth control, but could also put women at risk of being jailed for miscarrying.
Besides the obvious problem that a personhood amendment could force a woman into the degrading position of keeping her baby even in cases of rape or incest, it could also put a woman’s life in very real danger. For instance, in 2011, the ACLU’s Alexa Kolbi-Molinas told NPR that a personhood law could tie a doctor’s hands in the event of an ectopic pregnancy, in which the fetus fertilizes outside the uterus. Not only is an ectopic pregnancy not viable, but it could potentially threaten the mother’s life as well. Kolbi-Molinas said that while it is “essential” that ectopic pregnancies be ended as soon as possible, that may not be an option if a personhood amendment were on the books.
Personhood amendments could also cause major headaches in areas ranging from inheritance law to family law. Once people figure this out, monstroities like this not only lose, but lose big. Two proposed personhood amendments have failed in Colorado, with 70 percent or more voting no. They even lost big in deep-red Colorado Springs, one of the epicenters of the pro-life movement. A 2010 amendment in Mississippi, one of the most socially conservative states in the nation, failed when 59 percent voted no.
We already knew Huckabee had long since dropped any pretense of being a kinder and gentler religious right leader. But it says a lot about him when he not only openly embraces such a blatantly extreme measure to end abortion, but is willing to take what would amount to police-state measures to do it.
