Dr. Mehmet Oz, who demands to be called "Doctor," has been generally a supporter of reproductive rights, as revealed in the video from David Doel below. However, he now is running for the GOP nomination for US Senator from Pennsylvania, and so he had a problem when interviewed by Fox News' Will Cain..
Cain is seen asking "when should we draw the line when abortion is legal" and Oz responded "As a doctor, I appreciate the sanctity of life and for that reason I'm strongly pro-life with the three exceptions I've mentioned. That's how I would vote."
He's a Republican, and so he would. However, Cain followed u with "and when does that life begin" and Oz replied "you know, again, if I'm pro-life, then it's a decision that comes back to the sanctity of when you think life does begin and I think it begins in the mother's womb."
If I'm pro-life. As if that weren't obvious enough, "appreciate the sanctity of life" comes off a little defensive, a statement even a pro-choice individual could make. Moreover, Oz need not declare himself "pro-life" more than once- arguably not even once- if he is against abortion rights, as he wants primary voters to believe.
I think it (life) begins in the mother's womb. That is a statement, incompatible with the belief that life begins at conception, that all pro-life individuals would make, This startling comment prompts Cain to ask "When you're in the mother's womb? But that carries you all the way up to nine months of pregnancy."
Of course it does, so Oz is left with "no, of course that life's already started when you're in your'e mother's womb but it's a rat hole to get trapped into different ways of talking about it."
Speaking of a "rat hole"- Oz continues floundering, also again pleading he is "pro-life" and that such "feelings (be) respected," which is not much of an ask.
We need as a nation to make sure the constitution is appropriately followed and people like me- and you may be in the same camp who are pro-life have our feelings respected and this is something that should not be taken away from us by judiciary legislating from the bench.
As against the judiciary legislating from the nearest Ace hardware store or Applebee's restaurant, I guess. Cain then mercifully ends the exchange and David Doel remarks
I have to laugh because Dr. Oz is clearly a fraud, as I'll get to, but now that he's running as a Republican candidate for Senate he has to play this game but even in playing this game he is unable to say that life begins at conception.
Unfortunately, if he is nominated and elected, Oz will be publicly and staunchly pro-life because it is part of the GOP litmus test, Still, Oz' inability to to declare forthrightly that life begins at conception is telling.
The reason the candidate was unwilling to lie about that one specific point was foretold in the first phrase he used in this portion of the interview. As a doctor.
As a doctor, Oz may know As Gregg Easterbrook, who advocated prohibiting abortion in the third trimester, explained in January 2000:
- Regardless of abortion, two-thirds of conceptions fail;
- Lungs become able to function at about the 23rd week;
- Kicking, which begins at about the twentieth week, is probably a spasm; and
- Complex brain activity exists from the third trimester on.
If Oz does not know all that specifically, he probably is at least aware that the notion, whether religiously based or otherwise, that life begins at conception is factually unsustainable.
The popular base of the Republican Party demands its nominees be anti-abortion rights and Oz therefore continually states that he is "pro-life." However, the public as a whole always has been more inclined to believe "life"- however defined- begins at conception than to be generally opposed to abortion rights or, especially, Roe v. Wade. As Dr. Oz already (now) is on the record as being "pro-life," he must clean up his answers and declare, with fingers crossed behind his back, that life begins at conception.
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