John Kasich

Context: In 1982, Kasich ran for Congress in Ohio's 12th congressional district, which included portions of Columbus as well as the cities of Westerville, Reynoldsburg, Worthington, and Dublin. He won the Republican primary with 83% of the vote and defeated incumbent Democrat U.S. Congressman Bob Shamansky in the general election by a margin of 50%-47%. He was re-elected eight times after 1982, winning at least 64% of the vote each time.  During his congressional career, Kasich was considered a fiscal conservative, taking aim at programs supported by Republicans and Democrats. He worked with Ralph Nader in seeking to reduce corporate tax loopholes.  Kasich was a member of the House Armed Services Committee for 18 years. He developed a "fairly hawkish" reputation on that committee, although he "also zealously challenged" defense spending he considered wasteful. Among the Pentagon projects that he targeted were the B-2 bomber program (teaming up with Democratic representative Ron Dellums to cut the program, their efforts were partly successful) and the A-12 bomber program (ultimately canceled by defense secretary Dick Cheney in 1991). He participated extensively in the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which reorganized the U.S. Department of Defense. He also pushed through the bill creating the 1988 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which closed obsolete U.S. military bases, and successfully opposed a proposed $110 million expansion of the Pentagon building after the end of the Cold War. He also "proposed a national commission on arms control" and "urged tighter controls over substances that could be used for biological warfare."  Kasich said he was "100 percent for" the first Persian Gulf War as well as the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, but said that he did not favor U.S. military participation in the Lebanese Civil War or in Bosnia. In 1997, with fellow Republican representative Floyd Spence, he introduced legislation (supported by some congressional Democrats) for the U.S. to pull out of a multilateral peacekeeping force in Bosnia. In the House, he supported the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, a Dellums-led initiative to impose economic sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa.  In 1993, Kasich became the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee. Kasich and other House Budget Committee Republicans proposed an alternative to President Bill Clinton's deficit reduction bill, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. That proposal included funds to implement Republican proposals for health care, welfare, and crime control legislation and for a child tax credit. The Penny-Kasich Plan, named after Kasich and fellow lead sponsor Tim Penny, was supported by Republicans and conservative Democrats. It proposed $90 billion in spending cuts over five years, almost three times as much in cuts as the $37 billion in cuts backed by the Clinton administration and Democratic congressional leaders. About one-third ($27 billion) of the proposed Penny-Kasich cuts would come from means-testing Medicare, specifically by reducing Medicare payments to seniors who earned $75,000 or more in adjusted gross income. This angered the AARP, which lobbied against the legislation. Another $26 billion of the Penny-Kasich plan's cuts would have come from the U.S. Department of Defense and foreign aid, which led Secretary of Defense Les Aspin to say that the plan would destroy military morale. Another $27 billion in savings would have come from federal layoffs. The proposal was narrowly defeated in the House by a 219-213 vote.  As ranking member of the Budget Committee, Kasich proposed his own health care reform plan as a rival to the Clinton health care plan of 1993 championed by First Lady Hillary Clinton, but more market-based. As Time magazine wrote, "The Kasich plan would have covered all Americans by 2005, using a form of an individual mandate that would have required employees to purchase insurance through their employers. (The mandate was an idea initially supported by conservative groups like The Heritage Foundation.)"  On November 17, 1993, Kasich voted to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement, casting a "yea" vote for the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act.  In 1994, Kasich was one of the Republican leaders to support a last-minute deal with President Bill Clinton to pass the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. After a series of meetings with Clinton's Chief of Staff, Leon Panetta, a longtime friend of Kasich, the assault weapons ban was passed when 42 Republicans crossed party lines and voted to ban assault weapons with the Democrats. His support of the assault-weapons ban angered the National Rifle Association, which gave Kasich an "F" rating in 1994 as a result.  Kasich is a "firm abortion opponent" and describes himself as pro-life. He says abortions should only be performed in cases of rape, incest, and when the mother's life is in danger. Since taking office, he has signed 18 anti-abortion measures into law. In June 2013, Kasich signed into law a state budget, HB 59, which stripped some $1.4 million in federal dollars from Planned Parenthood by placing the organization last on the priority list for family-planning funds; provided funding to crisis pregnancy centers; and required women seeking abortions to undergo ultrasounds. The budget also barred abortion providers from entering into emergency transfer agreements with public hospitals, requiring abortion providers to find private hospitals willing to enter into transfer agreements. Another provision of the bill requires abortion providers to offer information on family planning and adoption services in certain situations. Under the budget, rape crisis centers could lose public funding if they counseled sexual assault victims about abortion.  In 2015, Kasich said in an interview that Planned Parenthood "ought to be de-funded" but Republicans in Congress should not force a government shutdown over the issue.  In December 2016, Kasich approved a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, except when a pregnancy endangers a woman's life, but vetoed HB 493, a law which would have made abortion illegal after detection of a fetal heartbeat (typically 5-6 weeks after conception). Kasich cited the cost to taxpayers of defending the legislation in court, and the likelihood that the "Heartbeat Bill" would be struck down in federal court as reasons for vetoing the more restrictive bill. CANNOTANSWER

Question: What was John Kasich's stance on abortion?
Answer: Kasich is a "firm abortion opponent" and describes himself as pro-life.