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Mike Huckabee Thinks Embryos Need To Be Rescued From Wombs Like Trapped Coal Miners

Back in May of 2007, I was listening to a Republican presidential debate, and I heard this from former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee: "I believe life begins at conception. And I believe that we should do everything possible to protect that life... and that's why we go out for the 12-year-old Boy Scout in North Carolina when he's lost. That's why we look for the 13 miners in Sago, West Virginia, when the mine explodes. That's why we go looking for the hikers on Mount Hood: Because we value life."

Fancy that. Mike Huckabee not only said that life begins at conception, but also said "we should do everything possible to protect that life." Just in case you didn't get it, Huckabee went on, saying that we should mount operations parallel to the search parties for lost Boy Scouts and to the rescue operations for lost miners.

There are three possibilities:

Possibility One: It's possible Mike Huckabee really means what he says. In that case, if "life begins at conception" and "we should do everything possible to protect that life," then Governor Huckabee should be made aware that, according to testimony before President Bush's own Bioethics Panel, 60 to 80 percent of human conceptions fail to implant or otherwise fail in pregnancy, and 40 to 50 percent of those failed conceptions "did not contain defects or abnormalities, could have been bornÉ and become babies."

There are approximately 4 million births in the United States each year. To be conservative, let's assume that only 60 percent (not the higher 80 percent estimate) of conceptions fail to come to term. Those 4 million births therefore represent 40 percent of conceptions. That in turn means there are 6 million conceptions which fail to come to term each year. Now, to be conservative again, let's assume that only 40 percent (not the higher 50 percent estimate) of those failed conceptions "did not contain defects or abnormalities, could have been bornÉ and become babies." This means that there are approximately 2,400,000 conceptions each year resulting in embryos that "could have been bornÉ and become babies" but did not. 2.4 million needless deaths! 2.4 million little hikers, trapped in the wilderness! 2.4 million human lives which, according to Mike Huckabee, we should do "everything possible to protect."

Current thinking within the Republican mainstream is that interfering with the liberty and bodily autonomy of a woman is acceptable in order to prevent abortions, because a little human life is at stake Ñ a life that begins at conception, whose liberty takes precedence over the liberty of a woman at conception, too. Surely, women's freedom can be restricted to save a life, the argument goes. Fine, then. If Mike Huckabee really believes we should do "everything possible to protect" human lives beginning right at conception, and if he is going to make analogies to search parties for Boy Scouts and rescue operations for miners, then surely he must have in mind a program of search and rescue for those 2,400,000 little embryos that could be born and become babies but fail to implant. We don't flinch at shoveling out government resources to find missing 8 year olds lost in the Okeefenokee Swamp, do we? Then we shouldn't flinch at shoveling out government resources to search every sexually-active woman's body to save these little human lives, should we? Well, first we'll need an accurate accounting of every woman's sexual activity so that we know where those little lost embryos might be (the other choice is to search every American woman between the onset of puberty and the onset of menopause). Then, we'll need to have daily blood analysis in the lab to measure changes in gonadotrophins, so that we can tell when a pregnancy begins and when a failure of that pregnancy might be commencing. Then we'll need doctors at the ready to intervene with a thorough search of a woman's body cavity so that the little kiddo can be found and reimplanted. Sure, that's a violation of liberty on a massive scale. Sure, it's a huge big government program that would probably bankrupt the nation. But "we should do everything possible to protect that life!"

Possibility Two: Mike Huckabee doesn't understand the ramifications of what he has said, and feels comfortable making policy prescriptions limiting the liberty of half the population based on half-baked ideas.

Possibility Three: Mike Huckabee doesn't really believe what he has said, and is willing to misrepresent himself and his ideas to the American people in order to win election.

If Possibility One is true, we simply can't afford to support Mike Huckabee's bid for president.

If Possibility Two is true, a vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for eight more years of half-baked ideas.

If Possibility Three is true, a vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for eight more years of a liar in the Oval Office.

From Irregular Times