GOP Candidates in Values Voter Debate

The Republican presidential candidates who participated in the Values Voter Debate Monday night opposed not only abortion but science-based sex education, CEDAW, and universal health care, too.

The Values Voter Debate Monday night was bypassed by the four leading Republican contenders for president. But the other seven who showed were staunch in their opposition to Planned Parenthood and abortion and strongly in favor of abstinence-based education.

"I want to be the president to appoint the justice that is the final vote we need to overturn Roe v. Wade and end this night of wrong," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., expressing a deep antipathy toward abortion that was shared by everyone on stage and many in the crowd.

"Life begins at conception," echoed Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. Paul called on other candidates to support his "Sanctity of Life Act," that which would strip federal courts of the right to review lawsuits related to reproductive health.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., pledged to appoint only anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court. "If a judicial candidate can look at a sonogram of an unborn child and not see evidence of a valuable human life, I will not appoint him to the bench," he said.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., agreed with Hunter, saying, "All of us would appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade." He said when it came to appointing judges and justices, "There will be a litmus test."

Businessman John Cox said that, "This issue tears this country apart, and it shouldn't." He said he was staunchly against abortion and called for judges to "only interpret the law."

Ambassador Alan Keyes, who ran unsuccessfully for Senate against Barack Obama in 2004, said he would "issue an executive order…to protect life in the womb." And he called on Republicans to support a right-to-life amendment to the Constitution, saying, "It's simple, it's clear, it must be done."

Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas took a shot at the candidate who did not attend, saying, "It's obvious that all of us on this stage are pro-life. I also think it's obvious why there are four empty podiums here tonight."

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson all declined to attend the debate.

Candidates expressed general opposition to family planning programs. In a "lighning round" of questions, all candidates said they would defund Planned Parenthood and would allow federal funding to go only to organizations that "neither perform nor promote abortion." All candidates also expressed opposition to universal health care and supported a ban on federal funding of school programs that teach that homosexuality is normal.

Candidates also were unanimous in their support of expanding abstinence-based education funding, and all expressed opposition to treaties, such as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, that "could be used to support abortion as a human right."