More from POLITICO's Juana Summers, who reports that Herman Cain had both a bright line and a bit of an asterisked stand on abortion during his interview with CNN's Piers Morgan.
Cain began by saying, "I believe that life begins at conception and abortion - under no circumstances."
Continue ReadingWhen Morgan asked about exceptions in the case of rape or incest if it occurred to a family member, he gave a bit of a dodge - but did answer the question this way:
"What it comes down to. It's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you're not talking about that big a number. So what I'm saying is, it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president. Not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family, and whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue."
His views on abortion, he said, should be seen this way: "I can have an issue on a opinion without it being a directive on the nation. The government shouldn't be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions that they need to make."
This is not the kind of bright-line language that social conservatives who oppose abortion - and who have been trying to elevate it as an issue amid an economy-focused presidential cycle - general like to hear.
Since Cain answered the question as a personal philosophical response and not a policy prescriptive, he may try to say that he was only speaking for himself and not for what he would do as president.
But he also didn't say what he would do as president, an omission that he will get pressed on.
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