Mike Huckabee Says he Will Use Military to Prevent Abortion

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Mike Huckabee, like so many other Republican candidates, has demonstrated that he does not know how our government works, or much of anything else, apparently. This friend to rapists and criminals wants to stop abortion, even if it means employing federal troops.

Yes, this enemy of big government wants to bully women with military force.

This all came to light on July 31, when The Topeka Capitol-Journal reported that while at a speaking engagement in Iowa, where Republicans always say stupid things,

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee indicated Thursday that if elected, he wouldn’t rule out employing federal troops or the Federal Bureau of Investigation to stop abortion from taking place in the United States.

One sees the logic at once, of course! Because, you know, abortion is legal in the United States. The Supreme Court has said so. The Supreme Court has even said abortion bans are unconstitutional. So it logically follows that one must use federal troops to stop abortions.

This is one of those facepalm moments that have become all too common where Republicans are concerned. Needless to say, this isn’t the first time a Republican presidential hopeful has said the Supreme Court is irrelevant, that they will decide what is constitutional and what isn’t. Huckabee himself has already said he would ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality.

Huckabee’s logic is based on – at least in his mind – constitutional principles. He said he would “invoke the Fifth and 14th Amendments for the protection of every human being.”

According to Huckabee, the Capital-Journal reports, these amendments “contain due process protections against depriving people of life without due process of law.”

The Fifth Amendment says,

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The Fourteenth Amendment says,

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I guess he doesn’t think the Supreme Court would have considered this when they issued Roe v. Wade (1973), or ruled that abortion bans are illegal. Well, what does the Supreme Court know?

Funny how the Fourteenth Amendment suddenly means something to a Republican. It sure doesn’t have any meaning when we’re talking about, say, religious freedom. Then, suddenly, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t apply to individual states, even though the Fourteenth Amendment says it does.

For example, anti-sodomy laws violate the first Amendment. The Supreme Court ruled in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas that “intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Republican voter ID laws regularly violate the Fourteenth Amendment. It doesn’t stop them from arguing for them in federal courts.

Once again, the GOP’s moral relativism rears its ugly head. The Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t matter – unless you suddenly want it to matter.

Huckabee asked the crowd, “Would that be a huge controversy? Yes.”

Yes, it would be a huge controversy, because it’s stupid. Stupid is always controversial, if not surprising. I think most of us are past being surprised by catastrophic ignorance and hypocrisy coming from Republican presidential candidates.

But it gets worse:

But he argued that scientific advancements have now verified that unborn babies are human beings — information he said wasn’t necessarily available when the Supreme Court issued its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

“I will not pretend there is nothing we can do to stop this,” Huckabee said at the event, where a Topeka Capital-Journal correspondent was present.

Wait. Science has done what? I thought you weren’t a scientist, Mr. Hucakbee? Science has verified that man-made global warming is destroying our environment, but I don’t see you advocating protecting the environment.

Then comes the kicker:

“All American citizens should be protected,” he said in Rockwell City, after his earlier comments.

All, apparently, except for post-born black men and women, who can be gunned down and murdered in the backseat of squad cars or in their jail cells with impunity. That’s okay. In one extreme cast, we have even seen “a Republican candidate for Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Sheriff, who refused to rule out the use of deadly force to stop ‘elective’ legal abortions.”

That’s right. He’d kill a post-born to save a pre-born. That’s pro-life for you.

The Capital-Journal said another reporter questioned Huckabee on how he would stop abortion, probably on the grounds that it’s perfect legal, and Hucakbee said, “We’ll see, if I get to be president.”

And any media outlet worth its salt would have demanded on answer from Huckabee on how the Fourteenth Amendment can at one moment apply, and in the next, not.

So, of course, it stands to reason that Media Matters for America reports, “On the August 2 edition of CBS’ Face the Nation, host John Dickerson failed to confront Huckabee on his suggestion that he might order troops to interfere with women’s reproductive health decisions.”

Dickerson decided to ask him about his “oven door” comments regarding the Iran deal instead.

Apparently, for CBS News, women’s reproductive rights aren’t critical.

Huckabee’s logic fails across the board. When the Supreme Court issued Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483, on May 17, 1954, President Eisenhower was compelled by that ruling to send the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce school integration in 1957. It wasn’t that Eisenhower was particularly sympathetic to the cause, but that he understood his duty and did what duty required. The Supreme Court had spoken: it had laid out the law of the land and the president acted accordingly.

President Eisenhower, in employing the United States Army, was enforcing the law of the land. What Mike Huckabee proposes is the opposite. He claims the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment as his justification, but per Roe v. Wade, abortion is legal. He can’t employ federal troop, in defiance of the Supreme Court, to permit violation of the law of the land.

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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