Newt Gingrich

Tier 2
Newt Gingrich

Presidential candidate

Tier 2 - Personhood Whenever

Newt Gingrich attempts to protect the innocent yet he undermines and therefore delays the country's enforcement of the God-given right to life of unborn children by defending legislation like the Hyde Amendment which allows for tax-payer funding of the killing of certain unborn children.
Gingrich personhood pledge
  • Gingrich Signs Personhood Pledge: Regardless of his former compromised positions and actions regarding abortion, if Newt Gingrich had kept the personhood pledge he signed in December 2011, he would be a Tier 1 pro-life leader. Rather, he is a Tier 2 "Personhood Whenver" politician because while thankfully, Newt signed the following personhood pledge, 1 he has quickly violated its promise:
  • Newt Violates His Pledge: However, just one month after signing the pledge, Newt Gingrich defended the Hyde Amendment (which authorized tax-paid funding of abortion for rape and incest victims) when he stated, "The Hyde Amendment has always included exceptions for rape and incest except one time. Henry Hyde (who was arguably one of the greatest elected advocates of the right to life that we had for a generation) knew he could pass an amendment to block any tax paid funding if he included those exceptions. And he literally couldn't pass it otherwise. And so there's a Catholic doctrine that if you can save the majority then you decide to do it even though it's not perfect. And Henry, as a good Catholic, was operating within that. I was with him in '84 on the platform committee when we adopted "no exceptions" on the Republican platform because we had the votes to do it."
  • Opposing Lethal Embryonic Research: "I would eliminate all funding for any stem cell research which came from the killing of life," Gingrich said in January 2012. "This was never an argument about science. This was the use of science to justify desensitizing the society to killing babies."

Summary: Even though Newt Gingrich signed the Personhood Pledge, he still just doesn't quite understand the concept. He is in favor of Personhood legislation but only if there are enough votes to get it passed. If there are not enough votes, then he will sign legislation like the Hyde Amendment which authorized tax-paid funding of abortions for rape and incest victims. Gingrich's position is therefore "half a loaf is better than none." Unless of course it is poison, half a loaf is better than none. But you don't commit adultery or consent to murder to get that half a loaf. For if you did, it would become poison. If you can only get half a loaf, then you take half a loaf. Of course. But you don't agree to poison the other half. If your own children are starving, and you want even half a loaf to save them, you don't say that if you can have half a loaf, then you will agree to other children being starved to death, or being fed poisoned bread, so that you can have half a loaf. No matter how you look at the false teaching of child killing regulators, it all comes down to a violation of the biblical principal in Romans 3:8, that we must never do evil that good may come of it.