It seems the good doctor is "pro-life" unless of course you're talking about military interventions in the Middle East. Then all bets are off. Here's GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson on ABC's This Week, spouting previously debunked lies about Planned Parenthood, black genocide and Margaret Sanger, while Martha Raddatz proves herself to be about as useful as a potted plant:
RADDATZ: OK, you made some controversial comments this week about Planned Parenthood, saying, "…one of the reasons you find most of their clinics in black neighborhoods is so that you can find a way to control that population."
Do you really believe that Planned Parenthood is targeting African American communities to control the population?
CARSON: Well, again, you have to go back to the beginnings of Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger, who was a great believer in eugenics and believed that certain people were like weeds that needed to be controlled.
RADDATZ: But we're talking today, and Planned Parenthood estimates that fewer than 5 percent of its health centers are located in areas where more than one-third of the population is African American.
CARSON: I believe we could find some data quite contrary to that. I have seen some of their maps.
RADDATZ: But you just don't believe that data? You believe this is happening today?
Facts? Who needs any stinking facts when you can just pull them out of your backside instead?
CARSON: Well, here's what's important. Margaret Sanger believed that certain people, including blacks, were inferior and that the way you strengthen the society is you get rid of them.
RADDATZ: I'm confused about your stance on abortion.
Do you believe there should be an exception for incest and rape?
CARSON: I believe that, once conception has been achieved, that it is a human life. And I have spent my entire career --
RADDATZ: You believe life begins at conception?
CARSON: I believe -- yes, I do believe that.
RADDATZ: And I think you said the other day that it was when the heartbeat started.
CARSON: No. What I believe is life starts at conception. I've said there are a lot of people who think that it's at the heartbeat. And I think most people can come to the conclusion that once you have a heartbeat that you clearly have a living organism.
RADDATZ: So no exceptions to rape and incest?
CARSON: What I have said is that, you know, I have spent my life trying to save life, not trying to destroy it.
Yes, he's "pro-life." Unless of course you're talking about sending people to war after they're born. Then killing them is perfectly acceptable.
RADDATZ: OK, you -- I want to move quickly to foreign policy.
CARSON: All right.
RADDATZ: You also made some comments about the fight against ISIS this week, saying you would use every resource we have available to us to take the land from them, take the oil from them.
How do you do that?
Do you send in 200,000 ground troops?
CARSON: Coalitions and enthusiasm generally tends to follow success. If you don't provide leadership, you're never going to get the people over there to join you, which is what we've been thinking, that somehow they're going to form the coalition, they're going to provide all the ground troops.
We may have to initially do some things ourselves. But I believe that we will have...
RADDATZ: What kind of things?
Ground troops or no ground troops?
CARSON: Ground...
RADDATZ: U.S. ground troops...
CARSON: -- ground troops may well be necessary.
RADDATZ: One hundred thousand?
Ten thousand?
CARSON: Well, you know, I don't pretend to be able to know the number without a lot of information. And that's one of the reasons that we have generals and people who really are able to figure out what needs to be done.
RADDATZ: OK, thanks very much, Dr. Carson, for joining us.
Have fun here today.
CARSON: Thank you.
When these so-called pro-lifers quit calling for more war, an end to the death penalty and to stop arming everyone and their grandmother to the hilt, maybe we can begin to take them seriously when it comes to their stance on "life."
