Don't punish women who have abortions," presidential hopeful Fred Thompson says. Punish the doctors who perform them.
Authorities "can do whatever they want to with abortion doctors, as far as I'm concerned," the former Tennessee senator said while campaigning in Western Iowa according to the Los Angeles Times. But "if it comes down to giving criminal sanctions to a 19-year-old girl and her mama, I'm against that."
While acknowledging that as lawyer and lobbyist, he worked in 1991 and 1992 for a group fighting restrictions on abortion counseling he said that once in the Senate he "voted against these people and everything they were interested in," he said.
Speaking to crowds during his Iowa appearances, Thompson revealed his views on a variety of issues, including activist judges, gay marriage and illegal immigration.
Thompson chastised those judges in Iowa, Massachusetts and other states for rulings that opened the way to same-sex marriage, calling for constitutional amendments to curb judges' power to do so."What we're seeing here is a totally judicially created problem," he told a crowd in Sioux City, Iowa according to the Times. "You know how many states have affirmatively approved gay marriage? State legislatures? Zero."
He also said he backed a constitutional amendment to prevent states from being forced to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state under "some off-the-wall court decision, "and called for an amendment to bar judges from allowing same-sex marriage in a state unless that state's its legislature had approved it.
On illegal immigration Thompson said steps must be taken to expel illegal immigrants from the U.S."I think that if we catch illegal immigrants who are here, they need to be deported," he said. "We have the option of prosecuting them," he added. "It's not being done. I'm not suggesting that it should be done -- fill up our courtroom with these misdemeanor cases -- but we ought to deport them."
On President Bush, Thompson told reporters he supported the President. Asked about whether he would shift the country's direction, Thompson praised Bush's performance on Iraq, the economy and Social Security. While criticizing the president for presiding over "too much spending" at the federal level, he said he backed Bush's efforts to try to overhaul Social Security with private investment accounts. He also praised Bush for "doing a good job" on the economy and said, "I give him credit for the Supreme Court nominations that he's made." On Iraq, he said "I think that we are finally on the right track in Iraq, and we are making progress."
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