Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee Supports Denying Abortion to 10-year-old Rape Victim

Although the rape and subsequent pregnancy of the then 10-year-old Paraguayan girl is “a terrible tragedy,” GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said that abortion would have not made the situation any better.

Speaking last Aug. 16 with Dana Bash during an appearance for CNN’s State of the Union, the former Arkansas governor and devout Catholic Huckabee added that he supports the Paraguay government’s decision to prohibit the young girl from terminating the pregnancy.

The issue, which sparked a worldwide debate on child rape, is in the spotlight once again, as it is reported that the rape victim, now 11 years old, gave birth to a baby girl. Confirmed information from Asunción Red Cross Director Mario Villalba, as reported by CNN, said that that the “healthy” baby was born by cesarean.

The report added that the girl discovered she was pregnant in late April after a doctor’s visit spurred by abdominal pains. It was then found that her stepfather, Gilberto Benitez Zarate, raped and impregnated the victim. The 42-year-old man was arrested but denied that she raped the new young mom.

Now, Huckabee, a known anti-abortion figure in the United States, said that the incident in the South American country is “horrible” but ending the pregnancy and killing an “innocent child (the baby)” in the process is “really the issue.”

"There are two victims. One is the child; the other is that birth mother who often will go through extraordinary guilt years later when she begins to think through what happened,” Huckabee said during the interview with Bash.

Huckabee also said that the girl’s rape is horrendous but the resulting life has “possibilities that exist” and that an abortion would have only compounded the tragedy.

Through his political career, Huckabee’s opinion on abortion has evolved from flexible to firm. In 2006, the then-governor said that any law about voluntarily ending a pregnancy should be a state issue. But a year later, he said during a Fox News Sunday interview that the federal government should outlaw it. In more recent years, Huckabee has even compared abortion to slavery, as noted by the University of Tennessee's Daily Beacon, and the holocaust, according to a Right Wing Watch article. 

Aside from announcing that he is going to Israel to talk about President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, among other topics. Huckabee also mentioned during the State of the Nation interview that he will do “some fundraising” during his visit in the Middle Eastern country.