Allen West History Revision: Attributes Ronald Reagan Abortion Quote to Abraham Lincoln

If you didn't know about Abraham Lincoln's strong anti-abortion policies while he was in the White House, it's probably because they didn't exist.Rep. Allen West, however -- the former history teacher -- decided to deal an anti-abortion quote to the annual March for Life at the National Mall in Washington...

By Matthew Hendley

January 24, 2012

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If you didn't know about Abraham Lincoln's strong anti-abortion policies while he was in the White House, it's probably because they didn't exist.

Rep. Allen West, however -- the former history teacher -- decided to deal an anti-abortion quote to the annual March for Life at the National Mall in Washington yesterday, in the words of the great Abraham Lincoln.

Well, they were actually the words of Ronald Reagan.

"But here are the words of Abraham Lincoln," West said. "My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than reaffirming [sic] the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning."

Here's the thing -- either Reagan plagiarized that entire quote in his 1983 essay "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation" and all records of Lincoln saying this have been lost, or Lincoln never said that.

It reminds us of that "chicken for every pot" slogan the Republican National Committee used for Herbert Hoover back in the day.

Or, as West remembers it, FDR.

There's also the time in October that West argued "we should have been able to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement" in Iraq.

Like the one that was agreed to in 2008.

Well, here's the anti-abortion speech from West, the former "history teacher":

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