Bill Clinton: “Good. At least you have a consistent position. He said yes. That was his answer. His answer was yes. Then that brings me…”

“Good. At least you have a consistent position. He said yes. That was his answer. His answer was yes. Then that brings me to the question--there are two different issues here, not one. One is the biological question: Is a cell a living thing? Answer? If two cells join in the process that begins to make a human being, are they living? Answer? No one disputes that. That's not the issue. The issue is a much deeper one, and one over which people have argued for a long time, one over which Christians have argued for a long time: When does the soul enter the body so that to terminate the living organism amounts to killing a person? That is the question. It is a deep, moral question over which serious Christians disagree. I have heard--you may smile with all your self-assurance, young man, but there are many Christian ministers who disagree with you. And the question is--and let me say, I honor your convictions. I worked very hard in my State to reduce the number of abortions. I don't like abortion. The question for policymakers on the issue of whether Roe v. Wade should be repealed is the question of whether we really are prepared to go all the way and make women and their doctors criminals because we believe we know that. Now, you are. But here's the problem. In a great democratic society, you have to be very careful what you apply the criminal law to. For example, we make drugs criminal, right? And we throw a lot of people in jail, and our jails are full and they're just doubling all the time because they're so full. And 90 percent of us agree that drug use should be criminal, and we've still got the jails full. You have to be very careful when you know that there is a difference that splits the American people right down the middle. Very few Americans believe that all abortions all the time are all right. Almost all Americans believe that abortion should be illegal when the children can live without the mother's assistance, when the children can live outside the mother's womb. There is about a 50-50 split in our country of honest conviction about whether terminating a baby in the mother's womb before the baby can live outside the mother's womb amounts to what you say it does, which is first degree murder. So the reason I support Roe v. Wade and the reason I signed a bill to make abortion illegal in the third trimester is because I think that the Government of this country should not make criminal activities over which even theologians are in serious disagreement. That's how I feel. Employment”