The former president is back in the public eye again, with a new book and a headline-making interview with Matt Lauer that includes, among other things, some personal insight into his political beliefs:

The most startling anecdote he shared was the story of his mother’s miscarriage during his teenage years, when he says he drove Barbara to the hospital while she held her unborn fetus in a jar.

Bush says he included the story “to show how my mom and I developed a relationship,” but admits the jarring experience had a lifelong impact on his political beliefs.

“She says to her teenage kid, ‘Here’s a fetus,'” the pro-life President recounted to Lauer. “No question it – that affected me – my philosophy that we should respect life…There was a human life, a little brother or sister.”

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