President George W. Bush writes in his new memoir, Decision Points, that Bush’s mother showed him a fetus in a jar, according to the New York Post.
After Barbara Bush had a miscarriage, she saved the fetus in a jar and she “said to her teenage kid, ‘Here’s the fetus,’ ” Bush is expected to tell NBC’s Matt Lauer in an interview airing this evening
The episode contributed to Bush’s pro-life stance. “There’s no question that affected me, a philosophy that we should respect life,” Bush said.
“There was a human life, a little brother or sister,” Bush told the “Today” host during the sit-down to promote his tome, which hits stores tomorrow.
Bush said his mother gave him special permission to recount the private story in print.
But “the purpose of the story wasn’t to try show the evolution of a pro-life point of view,” Bush insisted to Lauer.
“It was really to show how my mom and I developed a relationship.”
Last week, the Washington Postreported that Bush said he personally approved waterboarding as a technique.
In a memoir due out Tuesday, Bush makes clear that he personally approved the use of that coercive technique (waterboarding) against alleged Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an admission the human rights experts say could one day have legal consequences for him.
In his book, titled “Decision Points,” Bush recounts being asked by the CIA whether it could proceed with waterboarding Mohammed, who Bush said was suspected of knowing about still-pending terrorist plots against the United States. Bush writes that his reply was “Damn right” and states that he would make the same decision again to save lives.
“Former President Bush should be ashamed of his decision to torture detainees,” said Rev. Richard L. Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. “His decision to allow the use of torture was both illegal and immoral. And his excuse that the use of waterboarding ‘saved lives’ is wholly inadequate and unjustifiable. U.S.-sponsored torture has cost innumerable lives of both American soldiers and civilians, because it has inspired extremists to commit acts of terror against us. It has cost us dearly. Torture does not make us safer; it makes us more of a target.”
The interview with Lauer will be shown on tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time.
