Written By : Warner Todd Huston

A few weeks ago Jon Fleischman of FlashReport.org was fortunate enough to snag an interview with gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. But the results of one segment of the meeting left him admittedly non-plussed, or as he termed it “unnerved.” Fleischman was aghast to learn of just how extreme Meg Whitman’s views on abortion really are. And after reading Fleischman’s interview myself, I have to wonder if her views makes her completely unelectable amongst California’s pro-lifers?

In the interview, Whitman was completely upfront about the fact that she stands solidly behind public funding of abortion. She was unequivocal about it, really. Whitman explained why she felt that public funding of abortion was the right decision telling Fleischman, “My view is that if we are going to be pro-choice… that it needs to be available to all women, and whether you are rich or poor, you need to be able to access that right. And it’s unfair to women who can not afford an abortion, and that’s why I support public funding.”

It’s one thing to say that a woman should be allowed to chose abortion — this is quite a common determination among liberals — but quite another, indeed, to say that the taxpayers should have to pay for that abortion.

Whitman obviously believes there is a “right” to abortion and that this “right” must be paid for by our tax dollars to be “fair.” This quixotic view of rights is quite an extreme one. After all, if public funds are used to pay for infanticide, then the rights of every taxpayer not to be a party to such actions is necessarily violated. Apparently Whitman doesn’t care that those with staunchly anti-abortion views might get queasy that their taxes are going to fund abortions.

Thankfully, Whitman agrees that late term abortions are wrong, but one has to wonder what arbitrary reasoning she uses to justify claiming that abortion is a “right” on one hand, but must be outlawed three to four months before full term on the other? Since when are rights based on age requirements? Does a person have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness only at a certain age? Or are true rights endemic to the human condition as has always been believed? If the later then Whitman hasn’t a logical leg to stand on with her view on rights and if the former then rights are transitory and open to the capriciousness of temporary popular sentiment making them less a right and more an mere opinion.

Whitman’s abortion views seem to have placed her decidedly in the minority, too. A recent Pew Research Poll finds that support for abortion is falling nation-wide.

Polls conducted in 2009 have found fewer Americans expressing support for abortion than in previous years. In Pew Research Center polls in 2007 and 2008, supporters of legal abortion clearly outnumbered opponents; now Americans are evenly divided on the question, and there have been modest increases in the numbers who favor reducing abortions or making them harder to obtain. Less support for abortion is evident among most demographic and political groups.

Pew found that opinions were even stronger against abortion when the question became one of making abortions far and few between, the pro-abortion view in the minority. The Pew poll also found that the number one reason cited for being anti-abortion was religious beliefs. Whitman’s views put her in direct opposition to those religious views.

Apparently, though, this does not worry her much. She feels that her abortion views should be cast off as the least important of the challenges facing the next governor. She reminded Fleischman that she is running on economic issues, after all. And if you happen to be a single issue voter?

You know what? People need to know where I stand, and what I have said is people will look at the whole package of attributes of my candidacy; my experience, what I bring to the table, my point of view on the social issues, and then people will weigh it. And if there are single issue voters, which there are on almost every issue, if I don’t agree with that person on that issue, whether it’s this issue or gay marriage or how I want to approach creating jobs in California, people just have to look at the whole package and say, “Okay. I don’t agree with her on every issue, but I like the general approach and I like her authenticity and what she says.

Public funding of abortion is an extreme view even for many Democrats. But for Republicans it is an infinitesimally minority position. I cannot help but feel that if Whitman’s abortion views become more widely known, she won’t so easy to blow it all off as a mere side issue.

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