Ben Carson, the Republican Party's rising candidate for president – the one who's lately giving front-runner Donald Trump a run for the money – said during a televised interview on "Meet the Press" that babies in the womb shouldn't be regarded as the enemy of the mother, and the abortion industry only fuels that line of "perverted" thinking.
Host Chuck Todd opened the line of questioning with the blunt query: "Does life begin at conception?"
And Carson's reply was equally blunt.
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"I believe it does," he said.
Todd then asked which mattered more – the mother's rights or those of the unborn.
"In the ideal situation," Carson said, the Blaze reported, "the mother should not believe that the baby is her enemy and should not be looking to terminate the baby."
He then spoke of mothers' protective instincts and the line pregnant women are being fed to believe – "that the baby is their enemy and that they have the right to kill it," he said.
Carson then asked: "Can you see how perverted that line of thinking is?"
Nobody has the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, Carson said.
"During slavey – and I know that's one of those words you're not supposed to say, but I'm saying it – during slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave," Carson said. "Anything that they chose to do. And, you know, what if the abolitionist had said, you know, 'I don't believe in slavery. I think it's wrong. But you guys do whatever you want to do?' Where would we be?"
He then said he "would love" to see the overturning of Roe v. Wade and deny abortion to even those women who've become pregnant by rape or incest.
"[There are] many stories of people who have led very useful lives who were the result of rape or incest," he said, the Blaze reported.
He also said he would consider abortion in cases where the life of the mother is at risk, but "that's an extraordinarily rare situation," he said, the Blaze reported.
"I'm a reasonable person," Carson said, "and if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby. I'll listen."