LUCINDA CREIGHTON WAS asked today if, given the chance, she would have aborted Hitler before he was born.
The Renua leader faced the question on the Leinster House plinth after it was recently asked of two US presidential candidates.
The matter was raised with Creighton as the abortion debate was back in the news today. Creighton is well-known for her strong anti-abortion views having quit Fine Gael over the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill over two years ago.
The Dublin South-East TD was taken aback by the question of whether she would have aborted Hitler in the womb and gave this brief response:
I haven’t followed that [debate] and thankfully I think the debate hasn’t descended to that low level in this country yet.
Stood beside her, Renua’s deputy leader Billy Timmins said it was “a crazy question”.
A version of the question was first posed in a poll of New York Times magazine readers last month.
They were asked if they would kill baby Hitler with 42% saying they would:
Then earlier this month the same question was asked of the Republican presidential candidate and former Florida governor Jeb Bush who had received the query in an email.
The Huffington Post asked him if, given the opportunity, he would kill baby Hitler.
“Hell yeah, I would! You gotta step up, man.” he told the website.
Bush was emphatic even when it was put to him that the future Nazi leader could have been a cute baby:
It could have a dangerous effect on everything else, but I’d do it — I mean, Hitler.
Bush’s Republican rival Ben Carson, who is strongly anti-abortion, was also asked a variation of the question earlier this month when a reporter asked if he would be “in favour of aborting baby Hitler”.
“I’m not in favour of aborting anybody,” was his brief response:
No other Republican presidential candidates have yet faced the question.
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