Showing why paradoxes work to brainwash voters, 64-year-old former pediatric neurosurgeon and second-running GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson called for a ban on abortion, asking the Supreme Court to reverse its 1971 landmark ruling Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortion in the U.S. Carson’s doctor’s demeanor, called “low-energy” by 69-year-old front-running real estate tycoon Donald Trump, belies his rabidly conservative views. Calling for a ban on abortion, the retired physician would pass laws to prosecute and incarcerate his medical fraternity. Speaking softly but carrying a baseball bat, Carson wants to turn back the clock on women’s rights “I am a reasonable person, and if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, I’ll listen,” said Carson rhetorically, knowing it’s unreasonable and outrageous to reverse established constitutional law.
Calling to ban abortion, Carson wants to send women into the back-alleys or across the border to exercise their right to choose to terminate pregnancy for whatever reason. Carson asks for a reasonable explanation but he and the pro-life lobby find no justification for terminating pregnancy. Carson’s determined to define when life begins and when abortion becomes an act of murder. Carson’s rhetoric is the same hate-speech that whips pro-life nut-jobs into committing violence against doctors or the women in family planning clinics. Instead of accepting established constitutional law, Carson whips, with a quiet voice, evangelicals into a frenzy, hoping finally to get their pro-life champion. Generations of conservative GOP politicians, including President Ronald Reagan, had more regard for finding out, once and for all, when human life deserves constitutional protections.
Watching his poll numbers rise in evangelical Iowa, Carson’s brain-trust decided to pour it on calling for an abortion ban. “In the ideal situation, the mother should not believe that the baby is her enemy and should not be looking to terminate the baby,” said Carson, deciding when an embryo becomes ad fetus, and fetus becomes a baby. Carson makes no distinction for embryologic development, believing it’s murder to terminate any pregnancy at any stage. Because Carson sells himself as a physician, his evangelical followers think he’s the last word on abortion. Most of his profession vehemently rejects his extreme anti-abortion positions, refusing attempts to criminalize medical procedures. Agreeing to abortion only to save the life of the mother, Carson wins votes from the most extreme pro-life evangelicals, willing to attack employees or customers of groups like Planned Parenthood.
Trump’s been going after Carson’s Seventh Day Adventist faith, implying that it’s a fringe Christian group. Trump has plenty to go after with Carson’s extreme views without mentioning his religion. Carson likes to compare abortion doctors to what slave owners did to their slaves, something so outrageous and so out-of-context it almost defies objections. White evangelicals have difficulty criticizing Carson, whose odd views of slavery and abortion almost defy responses. “What if abolitionists had said, ‘I don’t believe in slavery, I think it’s wrong. But you guys do whatever you want to do.’ Where would we be?” asked Carson, making more non sequiturs, without being challenged by the press or voters. Instead of talking about Carson’s faith, Trump should draw voters to Carson’s extreme views, especially about homosexuality, where he insists it’s a personal lifestyle choice.
Republicans fascination with Carson started with his relentless attacks on President Barack Obama, ripping him for everything under the sun, calling the president a “psychopath.” Carson uses his MD degree to justify some of the most off-the-wall comments running the gamut from gays to abortion. Admitting he’d like to see Roe v. Wade overturned, Carson makes his play for Iowa’s evangelicals, putting him into the lead against Trump. A new AP-GFK poll indicated the Republican voters believe that Trump is the most electable Republican candidate. Carson’s only path to the nomination would be to capture early evangelical-rich states like Iowa and South Carolina. Whether that would have any carryover beyond those two states is anyone’s guess. Carson’s extreme positions give former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush hope that he can somehow crawl back into the race.
Pleading with evangelicals to lift him over Trump in Iowa and South Carolina, Carson hopes to milk the abortion issue for everything he can get. Fair-minded evangelicals should look carefully at a doctor who professes the Hippocratic oath but seeks to criminalize abortion laws to put his colleagues in jail. His rush to call Obama a “psychopath” more than likely mirrors his own cunning side, seeking, by whatever means, to trick voters into throwing him their votes. Carson admitted he’d use a pro-life litmus test to appoint federal judges. “I would like to see it done in the right way,” referring to reversing Roe v. Wade. Carson knows he can’t reverse established constitutional law but makes outrageous statements to extract votes from evangelicals. No one knows Carson’s real views on anything. He’s too busy cajoling religious Christians to get votes.
