The Republican presidential debates that happened this evening were a wild ride. The last debate was going to draw in a lot of people, but it didn’t appear that the hosts anticipated the interest.
Unfortunately for them, there is no debating whether these forums are rowdy and mean spirited.
In fact, many journalists have been under fire from the live blogging republican debate who accused them of bias and favoritism because they “let” Hillary Clinton win. To be fair, it didn’t seem like any journalist made much headway against Donald Trump’s wily tactics either before or during tonight’s debate.
It did get heated at one point, however. During the discussion on abortion, the moderator said something like, “We don’t believe anyone should be killed after birth.”
To which Trump interjected, “The baby is born” and then began to speak about how the mother could end that life.
It was clear that Trump did not know he had committed a gaff. He’s made this claim many times during his campaign, but this was far from his first time saying it.
If he has read any pro-life stances or statements made by pro-lifers for that matter, it doesn’t appear so.
Here some points on what happens at republican debate-
1. Abortion rights.
An interesting dynamic in the republican debates is that almost all of the candidates are pro-life. The one exception? Donald Trump, who believes women should have to carry a pregnancy to term unless chooses to have an abortion.
His reasoning is that the baby has a chance at life and if the woman chooses to terminate the pregnancy, she takes that chance away.
2. To ban or not to ban
And this is where it gets tricky. Pro-lifers believe that abortion should be banned because all life should be considered valuable and no one has the right to make decisions for others.
This sounds good in theory, but in practice it means criminalizing things like incest and rape as well as punishing mothers who have abortions with a hefty fine, a jail sentence, or both.
The republican candidates disagree on the issue of banning abortion because some believe it should be banned, others believe that if they were to do so it would lead to other legislation, and the rest support the idea of life without abortion.
3. Abortion and health care
One area where all of these candidates agree is that they don’t want Planned Parenthood funding.
They have cited poor health care in America as a reason to defund Planned Parenthood since it does provide healthcare for low income women in addition to providing abortions.
4. Abortion and the economy
There haven’t been as many pro-life stances as there usually are, but one notable stand out is Ben Carson who strongly believes that somehow unborn children can grow up to be successful.
On the other hand, those who support life without abortion believe that those opposed to it will invalidate women’s ability to make well thought out and considered decisions and that it will harm women.
And lastly: Abortion & the future
Another recent development was Donald Trump saying he would appoint supreme court justices who would vote against abortion rights.
Unfortunately for him, this statement isn’t any more valid than his recent proposal to prevent Muslims from entering America.
Unlike the Sanders-Clinton debate, the republican debate was much more tame. The moderators don’t seem to want to make any enemies or reporters or moderators for that matter.
There are no planned follow up questions to ensure that candidates have answered the questions because there are no follow up questions.
The candidates are allowed to speak uninterrupted for an extended period of time, and they often ignore questions asked by journalists altogether.
A republican debate is much more formulaic than a democratic one, actually because it lacks an audience and structured rules.
A moderator usually asks the first question based on a topic listed in front of them before moderating a conversation with all of the candidates simultaneously addressing each other’s questions.
This is all to say that there is a ton of room for the republicans to make mistakes and debate each other on topics that they don’t know much about- abortion, Obamacare, and of course gun rights.
It looks like we’re getting closer and closer to the general election, but this debate has already made that accomplishment seem more like wishful thinking than reality.
The Republican debates have been quite a commercial success for Fox News.
They have exceeded all expectations, including those of Fox’s own employees, who were surprised how many people were watching at the first two debates, the most watched political events in cable TV history.
