Well @maddow, I asked @newtgingrich if he supports birth control and he said only "preconception forms." #iacaucus #women2012
— Beth Schopis (@bschopis) December 15, 2011
Earlier this afternoon, Newt Gingrich opened the floor to questions in Fort Dodge, Iowa. His first question came from the same young woman who, back in October, asked Mitt Romney about his support for a "life begins at conception" amendment and what that might mean for birth control. (You might recall that Gov. Romney's answer inspired a trip into the Man Cave.)
Beth Schopis of Iowa appears to be making a habit of asking important questions that others on the campaign trail rarely seem to ask.
A transcript of her full exchange with Mr. Gingrich:
Q: Last night when you were in Des Moines you reiterated your support for the personhood amendments using the 14th amendment as a justification and I’m just a little concerned bc I use birth control and some forms of birth control would be outlawed if those personhood laws became the law of the land. So, do you support birth control, all forms of birth control? And can you help me understand where you stand on that issue.
Newt: Any kind of pre-conception birth control would be legal, but I think, I think post conception birth control would be a form of abortion. No, I don't support abortion. I said pre-conception forms of birth control is totally appropriate. There are lots of forms of pre-conception birth control.
We are reaching out to the Gingrich campaign for clarification on what forms of birth control Speaker Gingrich considers to be pre-conception.
ADDING: Video of the exchange
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Truthfully, the Republican primary race is probably still a toss-up between Romney and whatever anti-Romney conservative the base decides to latch onto next. But Newt Gingrich appears less and less likely that he is the man that the Tea Party base will turn to and embrace. Too many wives, too many skeletons in his expansive closet, too many Mitt-esque flip flops on issues of vital importance to right-wing conservatives. And Newt has no real organization or campaign money to speak of, Adelson billions aside. And, most importantly, Newt would be a true GOP disaster in a one-on-one against Obama. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
Newt: Any kind of pre-conception birth control would be legal, but I think, I think post conception birth control would be a form of abortion. No, I don't support abortion. I said pre-conception forms of birth control is totally appropriate. There are lots of forms of pre-conception birth control.
Having known Dr. Gingrich since 1972, I think I can continue (but not finish, for in NewtThink there are NO DEFINITIVES) this statement.
The immediate question is "what is pre-conception?" Does that equate to the period after sexual congress and exclusively prior entry of the Sperm into the Ovum does this mean prior to the implantation of the fertilized egg into the Uterine wall or is there another point in time that can be descrerted, and confimed? You may have a philosophical discussion about this, but that would be akin to the ancient fallacy of the philosophers' attempt to count the number of teeth in a Horses's mouth by reason. It simply does not work. I think there should be some sort of conscious deminsion to the fact of pregancy. This makes sense both physiologically and practically. It is not a tidy bit, but it is a reasonable appoach barring interevening circumstances that may impact the dynamic.
Parsing Newt, you see, please see, is impossible.
I have said it before, and I will say it again now: Newt is Stream-Of-Consciouness. All of it makes sense but no part of it makes sense by itself.
He is Finnegan's Wake
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend
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of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to
2
Howth Castle and Environs
...
End here. Us
then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thous-
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NOT a man to be President. Not even a man to be Speaker. Interesting, though. But there are many interesting things aboot
Newt doesn't have a clue about the science, nor does he care about the science. Abortion has been the main issue that keeps the Christian right in the Republican party. This is an issue that Republicans will never let go until the Christian right can no longer deliver a large block of votes.
I did not mention science. Newt is all argument and possibilities and conversatiopn and the splendid obscurity of the dialectic. You must back off from reality, Mike, and come with me to the faculty lounge. Good Martinis in the faculty lounge....
Saying this after the crushing loss in Mississippi is a flower to the extreme right, but makes him impossible in the general election. Maybe Mike is right after all- for whatever reason he prefers to the freedom of being a Gadfly to the responsibilities of being a President.
So sometime in August maybe we hear this from Newt:
Where have we heard this before?
Hello NextMSNBCStar,
You nailed it.
Newt Gingrich is bug nuts crazy.
Nobody would know if he could learn to shut up. Not going to happen (narcissist).
Sociopathic personality; Sociopathy; Personality disorder - antisocial (from NIH):
A person with antisocial personality disorder may:
Be able to act witty and charming (check)
Be good at flattery and manipulating other people's emotions (check)
Break the law repeatedly (check - $300,000 fine for tax fraud)
Disregard the safety of self and others (check)
Have problems with substance abuse (check - infidelity)
Lie, steal, and fight often (check - infidelity)
Not show guilt or remorse (check - infidelity yet again)
Often be angry or arrogant (check)
Pre-conception only?
I'd ask Newt if he has stock in Trojan.
Being pro choice does not mean that I am automatically in favor of abortions, it means I believe in letting a woman decide for herself, consult with and talk to whomever she needs to before making the decision.
Pro Lifers don't have the right to point at a pregnant women, tell her she cannot get an abortion, walk away feeling righteous and leave her to deal with the consequences of their actions.
If they banned legal abortions, it wouldn't stop them, it would just mean that they would be performed illegally and many women could die or end up in the emergency room from terrible complications every year.
People need to seriously consider the consequences of making something illegal.
As for contraception, I wish they'd develop a version of the pill for men to take. Let's see how many guys will regularly take a tablet with all the risks associated with some of the contraceptive pills women take.
Interesting read if you've got the time:
http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2011/11/03/alcohol-retinol-and-a-50-year-quest-for-the-male-pill/
Ultimate birth control...
thy name is Callista.
[& what in heaven's name is that contraceptive device on her head?]
When I first saw a picture of Newt's current trophy, I guessed she was maybe 15 or so years older than I am. Then I learned she's actually a few years younger. Yikes!
Calista. The woman with the Joker smile.
What about that murky gray area with the IUD? Is he against that? Would he support paying to remove every last IUD in existence? Would he prosecute if you refused to comply?
and this is this serial cheater's business because??????
Because he's all that's standing between us and the abyss. So he thinks, anyway.
The trouble with a male b/c pill, as a male comedian pointed out once, was that "If *you* don't take your pill, *you* get pregnant. If *I* don't take my pill . . . YOU get pregnant."
Perfectly said, AshCross13.
Also, I don't think a man should have the final decision whether a pregnancy comes to term for the same reason.
I can't wait to see Ron Paul top that, shock and awe.
Yes, and that Man Cave segment gave a lot of misinformation. It is not true that Plan B prevents implantation, and there's good reason to believe that the regular birth control pill doesn't, either. Yet Rachel stated as a fact that they both do. I wish you guys would consider looking more closely at the evidence (as opposed to the conventional wisdom) on this subject. I've sent documentation, but I'm willing to send more.
Quotes.
"We would have won in 1974 if we could have kept him out of the office, screwing her [a young volunteer] on the desk." - Dot Crews, his campaign scheduler at the time
"We had oral sex. He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, 'I never slept with her.'" - Anne Manning (who was also married at the time.)
[In the book] "Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them", [I] "found frightening pieces that related to my own life." - Newt.
"I think you can write a psychological profile of me that says I found a way to immerse my insecurities in a cause large enough to justify whatever I wanted it to" - Newt, speaking to Gail Sheehy.
"She isn't young enough or pretty enough to be the President's wife." - Newt, on his first wife.
"I don't want him to be president and I don't think he should be." - Newt's wife Marianne.
"If the country today were to move to the left, Newt would sense it before it started happening and lead the way." - Dot Crews, his campaign scheduler throughout the 1970s.
What happened to the "separation of church and state"? We can't have a nativity scene near a courtroom, but our government can use their religion to decide if women are incubators or human beings with certain "unalienable" rights. Where in the constitution does it state that women, if impregnated are not citizens and do not have control over their own LIVES!
Why are women still fighting the civil rights battle, why are we not considered intelligent citizens, YET? When are more women going to wake up and realize the truth to the entire abortion issue is really these old men refusing to accept a woman's intelligence and their desire to control women. They just cover the control issue up with religious jargon.
Maybe the next time I see one of those clueless guys standing outside Planned Parenthood with the nasty pictures, I should stop with a poster of my own, pictures of rape victims that were forcibly impregnated (young and old), pictures of women who died giving birth, and pictures of mothers who can't afford to loose their jobs because of pregnancy, and pictures of government officials who want to end all welfare and help for families who can't make a enough money to feed their families. I remember when, not so long ago, if a woman was fired because her fat belly got in the way at work, she didn't qualify for unemployment.
If men could get pregnant, there wouldn't be an abortion issue or birth control issue and sex offenders would be in jail for a long long long time.
yoda, Your first example is a sign of progress. The rest are proof that there's a long way to go.