NEWS: John McCain Would See Roe v. Wade Overturned

POLITICS: John McCain Would See Roe v. Wade Overturned

John McCain enjoys a bizarrely priveliged status amongst most of the current contenders for the 2008 presidential election. The fawning treatment the media have bestowed upon him stands in stark constrast with how the current Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, is typically referred to as "controversial" and "divisive." Which makes it all the more surprising that McCain, who seems to be shifting further and further right and towards the politics of the (former) Republican congressional leadership, can still be called a "maverick" and a "centrist." Maybe not so much any more, now that he has revealed himself to be anti-choice.

Good to know where he stands. Just don't forget that when he's running on an "I'm a centrist, Independents love me!" platform in 2008.

Yeah, I'm slowly starting to lose all respect for McCain the last couple of months. It's like the Neo-cons are a bunch of vampires and now they're got McCain under their control.

I don't know exactly how to interpret that interview. It seems half-baked at best. And my only interest in John McCain running for president is because I think he'd be easy to immitate on Saturday Night Live.

I think that when it comes to women's rights to choose to have an abortion and gay marriage - that those SHOULD be at the federal level and not left for each state to bicker over.

The notion that a gay married couple should be awknowledged in one state and not another is sooooooo fucking idiotic. The same goes with the right for an abortion. Now we're going backwards socially and suggesting that pregnant women go across state lines again to have an abortion?

Viva la progress.

I just don't understand why any educated person would want Roe vs Wade overturned. It is like setting women and women's rights back decades. Taking one of women's intrigal rights and doing away with it says to me, and a lot of women I am sure, that they don't care about us and just want to control us yet again.

It's also got a lot to do with pleasing the christian conservatives too. It isn't enough for them to preach it, but they feel they have to control everybody else with their beliefs. But they fail to realize that making it illegal will stop it, it'll just make the situation worse. I can't we've forgotten the lessons learned from prohibition.

gosh what a suprise. first he speaks at "liberty" university with jerry falwell by his side and now this. at least he has some exceptions to the rule unlike the dakotas.

Being from Arizona it's funny to me that this is news, John McCain is very conservative, he's moderate on environmental issues, Guns (a hot issue in the 80's, a moot point now), and campaign finance reform, that's all.

He is however a paleo-con which distinguishes him from Karl Rove and Bush.

He talks like a man who crosses party lines and brings people together, he votes like a Republican.

that's when I think he got bit by the neo-con vampires!

well South Dakota anyway, North Dakota has the same stance on the issue as the rest of the country...

McCain's ethical core began eroding the second he let Bush's (well, Rove's, actually) smear tactics against his family during the 2000 election run-up slide. But in the last few years he has taken his basic decency---and I think he is a basically decent man---and buried it, shit on it and buried it again. You look at him now on TV and he appears as if someone cored him out and all that's left is a thin, brittle shell. He looks and sounds hollow. He looks beaten. His voice has no strength. He has no convictions any more. His naked desire for the presidency has made him forego any/all ethics he ever had. I suppose that makes him a perfect Republican candidate for higher office.

Plus, I hate to be ageist, but I don't want a guy starting his presidential term in his seventies. Experience is good, but I really think the closer to the grave these guys are, the less likely they are to think progressively (of course there are exceptions to that rule, but McCain's a Republican and they're not really known for progressive thinking, are they?). Their futures are short, so why should they care how it all turns out? Just because humanity is doomed doesn't mean we need to race towards oblivion.

As always, exclusions for rape and incest are mindbogglingly chickenshit copouts. If it isn't the fetus' fault the condom broke, then it's certainly not the fetus' fault it was conceived via rape and/or Appalachian romance.

I'm a registered democrat. Full disclosure.

At least what I like about McCain is that he seems to be ideologically consistent, unlike Bush et al. His solution is to give power back to the states, which is an actual republican value that so few republicans follow. I don't personally think a "solution" is necessary on a piece of case law that has held up for thirty years, but, so be it.

Bush and his ilk talk about reducing the size of federal government, then increasing spending caps. Getting government out of people's lives, except their bedrooms and wedding chapels. Reagan was absolutely the same way. They use the ideals of republican government to sell people on lower taxes, then end up raising taxes in shady ways that expand government and its reach into our lives, without demonstrable effect that increases people's day-to-day quality of life.

Good for McCain. I love how you fucking politcal people twist everyones words. He is saying that Roe vs Wade should be overturned and the law then taken up with the states. This is a good thing. Fuck Big Government. Thats an issue expressly given to the states. Same thing with gay marrige...marrige is a states deal. The federal government has no right to step there to tell you what you can OR CANT do.

BZZT! Wrong! Try again, junior. Gay marriage deals with civil rights...and civil rights are a federal issue.

The Federal Government not only has the right...but the duty to "step in there". There are issues, such as inheritance rights, that are available to married people but not to homosexual couples whose marriages are not recognized.

Call it marriage, call it civil union...hell call it gettin' hitched for all I care. However, when the state says "you two can....but you two can't" based on sexual orientation...that's discrimination, friend. That's denying someone their rights...and that's a federal issue.

It's also not the mother's fault that it was conceived that way -- that's the point.

Expecting a woman to go through the experience of pregnancy and delivery of a child conceived in that way is probably a special kind of hell... pretty ridiculous to call that a copout (even if you are anti-abortion).

Full Disclosure: I'm pro-choice with only very few restrictions.

Fingerbo summed it up about McCain very well. And Cash makes a good point that civil rights are a federal issue. But in my gut, I don't want any more "federal issues." I want to see smaller federal government and more decisions returned to the states (and in fact their counties.)

Look at all the great civilizations of history, the relatively small countries and cultures - France, Spain, Greece, Germany, the U.K., Italy (just to name a few European ones for example). They are all the size of American states, and they all have their own language and their own distinct culture. If you travel across the 48 contiguous United States, you see the same thing... I've lived in L.A., San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, & MInneapolis. I've traveled and have relatives in Seattle and numerous other cities. EACH of these places had distinct cultures, just like most of the countries of the world that happen to be about the same size.

We waste an enormous amount of time, money and energy, and create a shitload of animosity, by having a bunch of power brokers in Washington trying to get Wyoming ranchers, New England professors, Seattle techies, California surfers, Mississippi bible thumpers, and the rest of everybody else all on the same page. What? All these vastly different people are supposed to AGREE on something as divisive as abortion or gay marriage or racial quotas or prayer in schools?

As much as I support the decision in Roe v. Wade, I'd just as soon turn all these kinds of issues over to the individual states.

Oh bullshit. Let's just take this to its logical conclusion. Do you also support Brown v Topeka, or landmark voting rights cases so that the "states can decide?"

How about we just go back to the Articles of the Confederation? Would that make you happy, or would you prefer us becoming a loose group of colonies to the Brits?

This is code, get it? When someone says they want something within the federal purview or protection "decided by the states" what they are saying is that they want to eliminate that particular protected right.

So, you support coat hanger abortions right? 'Cause that is what you are advocating.

So, balakanization is the way to make the US work better?

Waiter! I'll have some of what he is smoking.

What you also seem to forget is that we (those "relatively small countries and cultures") are also independent, sovereign nation states. Although many would like to see the EU develop into a federal government for the whole of Europe, it's not there yet (and, if the majority of the UK franchise has anything to do with it, never will be).

There are many incidences of tension between local and national government in Europe - in the UK even more so, due to the almost unique constitutional arrangements we have here. But in Scotland there are still clear differences between 'devolved matters' and those retained by the Westminster Parliament. Until the happy day we gain our independence, that's a price we will continue to pay, and it could hardly be otherwise. Do you want a passport issued by authority of the independent nation of Minnesota ??

I'm glad you said something sensible. Thank you.
Reading moronic shit like makes me see red.
I feel like my tourettes is needing attention.

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Sorry, needed to correct a spelling error - this is no such thing as balakanization

The federal governement doesn't have rights. It has powers. Specifically, it has the powers that are explicitly given to it and no others. All other powers are reserved for the states. You can't just wave your hands and create a new powers for the federal government.

Seems like a dangerously effective "divide and conquer" strategy to the enemies of women's reproductive rights. If they knock off federal protection of such an important health issue, then they can work on a much easier task of banning it state by state through whatever method it takes- bribes, funding cuts, threats.... A much easier task than rallying enough support for a federal constitutional amendment.

Say all you will about state soveriegnty, on this particular issue, it's a thin veil.
Lobbyists and party politics operate on a national basis.

I'm probably misinterpreting things here. why is everyone feeling so suprised and betrayed to find out mccain is a conservative? I've always liked him for his relative honesty and bluntness, not because he agrees with me about everything.

I usually vote democrat-- I even vote green for local positions-- but I'd take an honest, honorable conservative over a disingenuous (read: normal politician) liberal any day.

Are you kidding? Did you even read the interview above? McCain said he was in favor of a Constitutional Amendment banning Abortion, meaning he believes the FEDERAL Government should decide the issue. Only after acknowledging that a federal amendment would be all but impossible, does he talk about "states rights". Thus he advocates two ideologically inconsistent positions in a matter of seconds! The only ideology involved is limiting abortion by any means possible.