I dagens VG (9. november, s. 16) viser Anders Giæver til George W. Bushs uttalelser i et intervju med NBCs Matt Lauer der Bush forklarer at en opplevelse som tenåring formet hans holdning til abort:
– Jeg hadde aldri forventet å se restene av et foster, skriver Bush i boken.
– Det var et lite menneske, en liten bror eller søster. Det er ikke noen tvil om at det formet meg og min filosofi om at vi skal respektere livet.
Det bør tilføyes at det tok lang tid før denne tenåringsopplevelsen viste seg i Bushs politiske holdning på området.
Så sent som i 1999 ville ikke Bush binde seg til den republikanske partiplattformens ståsted på saken. Jeg skriver følgende i delkapitlet om George W. Bush i masteroppgaven min «Litmus Test Conformity in American Politics: Republican Party platforms and the Presidential Politics of Abortion, 1976-2008» (s. 48-49):
«The wishy-washiness endured after Bush unveiled his exploratory committee, being unwilling to answer questions about his stance on the Republican Party’s anti-abortion plank and on whether or not abortions should be legal in the first trimester (Tackett 1999). During the spring of 1999, Bush’s talking points on abortion was in line with the “Pro-Life with exceptions” category, and he was thus at odds with the party platforms’ abortion plank. Then, in January 2000, Bush stated the following: “I think that the Republican Party ought to keep its pro-life plank the way it’s written now” (Bruni 2000).[1] In his nomination speech at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Bush declared: “I will lead our nation toward a culture that values life — the life of the elderly and the sick, the life of the young, and the life of the unborn” (The American Presidency Project 2000).»
[1] Intriguingly, Bush’s repositioning was voiced on the day of the 2000 March for Life – the nation’s biggest pro-life march since its introduction in January 1974, commemorating the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (1973).
