In the same Fox Business interview during which he (rightly) noted Planned Parenthood’s unsavory history with regard to minorities, Ben Carson gave a curious answer to host Neil Cavuto’s question about abortion in the event of rape or incest:
Carson: In cases of rape and incest, I would hope they would very quickly avail themselves of an emergency room. And in the emergency room they have the ability to administer RU-486, other possibilities, before you have a developing fetus.
Cavuto: At the point of conception, do you see that as life, Doctor?
Carson: Certainly once the heart starts beating, certainly at that point. This is something that we need to come to accommodation. If we are willing to open up the discussion, both sides, I think we can come to an accommodation. We’ll never come to an accommodation as long as we get off in our respective corners and say, “Absolutely not.”
That comment has raised the ire of pro-lifers. But a few deep breaths are in order.
Carson’s invoking RU-486 is odd; it is, after all, “the abortion pill.” But it is also administered long after conception, five to seven weeks into a pregnancy, so it is not one of the “possibilities” available in the emergency room to prevent a fetus from developing. And preventing conception seems to be Carson’s point: Emergency contraception should be used in such situations to foreclose the possibility of abortion. (How contraception ought to fit into the larger pro-life schema is a valid question, but a philosophical one; despite Democrats’ fearmongering, America is, and will remain, a prophylactic paradise.) To that end, I suspect Carson had in mind not RU-486, but the “morning after” pill. That’s not a mistake a doctor should make, but it is more sensible than reading Carson’s comments as some sort of esoteric abortion advocacy.
The same generosity should extend to Carson’s second “controversial” comment, about life “certainly” commencing with a heartbeat. Again, I don’t take Carson to be hedging on the philosophical question of where life begins; he has stated countless times his belief that life begins at conception. He is making a political point: “I understand that others disagree with me about life’s starting at conception. But at the very least we can agree that life begins when there is a heartbeat, right?”
For those concerned that Carson has gone soft, consider the implications of a “heartbeat” consensus. A baby’s heartbeat is visible and audible to ultrasound at six weeks. Given that surgical abortion (the outpatient procedure for which one would go to the neighborhood Planned Parenthood clinic) cannot be performed before five weeks, and that most doctors prefer to wait longer, a consensus that life begins with the baby’s heartbeat would effectively prohibit almost all surgical abortions. To put that in context, recall: The House’s twenty-week abortion ban is considered “extreme.”
The exercised interpretation of Carson’s comments by some on the pro-life Right (of which I am a card-carrying member) is a reminder that philosophical rightness is worth only so much. Ceteris paribus, the “Life begins at conception” candidate who will make no headway reducing the number of abortions is not obviously preferable to the “Life begins at six weeks” candidate who will. Caviling at Ben Carson seems less productive than reminding voters that the Democratic party’s official platform supports on-demand abortion up to the moment of birth.
However, this episode is a worthwhile reminder, also, to Dr. Carson and the rest of the Republican field that, when it comes to abortion, clarity is crucial. Passions surrounding the topic are naturally high, but now, in light of the Planned Parenthood videos, both abortion advocates and opponents are parsing every word. Republicans have never been better positioned to advance the pro-life cause. It would be a tragedy if they squandered that opportunity simply by failing to exercise some rhetorical discipline.