With the 2012 elections around the corner, there are several candidates in Republican Party presidential primaries running to become the official Republican nominees that will go against President Barack Obama in November. There are numerous hopefuls including former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and Texas representative Ron Paul.

          For students who are 18, it is important to know the views of the candidates on important issues before going to vote. It is vital not only to know, but also understand each candidate’s opinions on the issues because it will affect everyone’s lives if one of these candidates ends up winning.

It’s fair to say that abortion is a very sensitive subject matter. Abortion has lead to debates between the oldest of adults and youngest of teens; hours on end are spent arguing on both sides of the issue.

The same can be said for the Republican candidates.  It’s the subject of many disputes at caucuses, more specifically their views on the Supreme Court decision in Roe V Wade, which made abortion legal in the US.  

Gingrich, who has never been shy about sharing his opinion, is against abortion in one of the most extreme ways. While all of the Republican candidates are pro-life, Gingrich as well as Santorum are against abortion even in cases of rape, incest, and issues of a woman’s health.

Santorum even bashed the Constitution, saying “I am for overturning Roe versus Wade. I do not believe that we have a right in this country, in the Constitution, to take a human life. I don’t think that’s — I don’t think our founders envisioned that. I don’t think the writing of the Constitution anywhere enables that.”

While it could be somewhat understandable that they have a strong stance against abortion because of the “rights of the unborn baby,” this is a matter concerning the rights that women have had to fight for and are trying to be taken away; it takes away their voice regarding their body and what she decides to do with it. Nor is it acceptable to deny an abortion to someone who was raped, especially a child. How is a child expected to take care of a newborn when they’re still a child themselves?

Santorum has also stated that he doesn’t believe in the use of birth control because it's “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."

“How things are supposed to be”? With teen pregnancy on the rise nowadays, the “way things are supposed to be” may no longer apply. Taking away any form of protection is not a wise decision if you want to get rid of abortion. Not all teens and even some adults are smart enough to use a condom and sometimes things happen, like a condom breaking. Is that their fault? Not really. And removing contraception is not the wisest decision on his part either.

On the topic of abortion, Paul played the first-hand experience card, telling a dramatic story to his followers about how as a doctor in the ‘60s that he witnessed, ‘the abortion of a fetus that weighed approximately two pounds. It was placed in a bucket, crying and struggling to breathe, and the medical personnel pretended not to notice. Soon the crying stopped.”

It seems that this example seems not only outdated because this encounter was in the 60s, but seems to be a ploy to scare women about the choices they may be forced to make or even feel bad about having to get one. Abortion laws and regulations have been put into force to prevent situations like that from happening. This includes abortions not being allowed after five months of pregnancy.

Paul also believes unprotected sex can be dealt with using morning-after pills, such as Plan B. Even though Paul claims it’s not an abortion pill but a way to prevent conception, they are very similar. Plan B pills not only delay ovulation for women, but prevent implantation of a fertilized egg into a woman’s uterus. If Paul’s idea is to avoid abortions, then he should be promoting safe sex and the use of preventions so the idea of an abortion never has to cross a woman’s mind except in extreme cases of rape, etc. 

Romney, on the other hand, is a flip flopper. He once stated in 1994 in a race against Ted Kennedy that he supported abortion. This opinion (like many others of this) has changed drastically. He now says that he firmly opposes abortion. It seems as if Romney is acting like a teenager in a high school class election, telling the students exactly what they want to hear in order to win the election. But unfortunately for Romney, this is a presidential election, not a year long spot on student council.

This is not the first time Romney has changed his opinion on the issues. Immigration has been the topic of discussion for the past few years, with nonstop debates on how to solve. Romney can’t seem to make up his mind on which side of the fence he’s on.

In an interview in December 2011, Romney made it quite clear that “Those who come here illegally should not be given a preferential treatment path for permanent residency or citizenship, but should placed on be a level field with those who waited in line. That continues to be my view.”

But in an interview from 2006, he was singing a different tune. Romney told Bloomburg News that undocumented workers "are not going to be rounded up and box-carried out … We need to begin a process of registering those people, some being returned and some beginning the process of applying for citizenship and establishing legal status.”

For a person to change their opinion from seeing a different side of an argument is understandable, but to be a candidate wanting to become the next president puts you at a higher standard. How are people able to put their trust in a candidate if he can’t even keep his views straight?

Newt Gingrich enjoys pointing out the inconsistencies of other hopeful Republican candidates; his favorite nominee to pick on is Romney. In reality, Gingrich is basically a bully. He likes to pick on others in hopes that people would be fearful of them and trust his opinion on important matters in regards to our country.

When it comes to immigration, Gingrich believes that, ‘we should have absolute control over the border … We should have English as the official language of government.”

But he doesn’t want to get rid of immigration all together, just modernize the deportation laws currently in effect.

"[Illegal immigrants] should pay a penalty, but they should then get a Red Card which would not put them on the road for citizenship, but it would bring them in from illegality," he said. "It would make them part of the community, and their children and grandchildren could aspire to become American citizens."

Paul believes U.S. immigration law is valid and should be enforced, but he opposes amnesty because it encourages illegal immigration more than it should. Amnesty essentially would allow illegal immigrants to go through a process that would eventually make them legal in the United States.

If he wins the presidential election, Paul said he would set up an immigration plan that would include enforcing border security, opposing amnesty, abolishing the welfare state, and protecting lawful immigrants.

Overall, I don’t support any of the Republican candidates, although I do agree with Paul regarding illegal immigration. I find the opinions of several candidates to be outdated and sacrilegious. The only candidate that is really showing some steam and has a great possibility in becoming the official Republican Party nomination is Romney, with two caucus wins under his belt.