Kanye West has been much in the news since announcing his late entry into the 2020 presidential race. Last year, West spoke out against abortion, leading many to believe he was Pro-Life. In recent weeks, West has used the spotlight of his attempt to enter the presidential race to speak openly about his experience with abortion. The course of West’s unorthodox political career is uncertain, but we can hope that his candid discussion of abortion and the sanctity of Life will have a lasting effect on public discourse.
At his first official campaign event in South Carolina in mid-July, West offered a surprisingly personal account of his experience with abortion. According to West, when his wife, Kim Kardashian, became pregnant with the couple’s first child, daughter North, they both considered ending her life in abortion. West said, “I was living the rapper’s lifestyle… She said she was pregnant, and for one month and two months and three months, we talked about her not having this child. She had the pills in her hand…. these pills, if you take the pills, that’s a wrap. The baby’s gone….”
The pills to which West refers are likely abortion pills, usually a regimen of Mifepristone and Misoprostol, which are designed to cut off nutrients to the developing baby, starving her to death, and then expel the baby’s dead body from the mother’s body. West and Kardashian chose not to follow through with the abortion. Today North is seven years old.
West says before they chose Life, he felt God speaking to him on a trip to France, which prompted him to reject abortion. He told the crowd, “I’m in the apartment in Paris, and I have my laptop up… and the screen went black and white. And God said, if you f*** with my vision, I’m gonna f*** with yours.” Ultimately, Kardashian’s decision to choose Life for their daughter was the deciding factor for West. He said when they spoke on the phone during that Paris trip “she said ‘we’re gonna have this baby.’ I said, ‘we’re gonna have this child.’” He added that Kardashian “brought North into the world even when I didn’t want to. She stood up and she protected that child.”
West then revealed that his daughter was not the only person in his family whose life was almost ended in abortion. After revealing that Kardashian defended their daughter and chose Life, he asked the crowd, “You know who else protected a child?… Forty-three years ago who do you think protected a child? My mom saved my life! My dad wanted to abort me. My mom saved my life!” He explained through tears, “There would have been no Kanye West because my dad was too busy.” Recognizing his own culpability, he added, “There would have been no North West.” With great emotion he exclaimed, “I almost killed my daughter! I almost killed my daughter!”
Many in the media have attacked West for sharing these personal stories and questioned his motives, speculating that West is suffering from a mental health condition. West responded to the criticism in a tweet, writing, “I cried at the thought of aborting my first born and everyone was so concerned about me… I’m concerned for the world that feels you shouldn’t cry about this subject.” West’s point is well taken. West’s emotional pain at almost ending the life of his child should not be viewed by our culture as a reason to question his mental health. The fact that more people are not able to speak openly about abortion regret is an indication of how pervasive and damaging decades of legal abortion have been.
West did not make his Pro-Life views only personal but also articulated some of the Pro-Life ethic. At the same campaign event, West took on the myth that abortion is a mother’s “choice.” He told the crowd, “When the baby’s conceived, at that point it is a soul, it is a real living thing… That six month old baby… that is a real, living thing…. it is real at that point, says God.” West made a parallel between ripping the baby from the womb under the logic of “my body, my choice” to ending the life of a child who has been born, saying a mother could claim “my house, my choice.”
In other outlets, West has also explicitly articulated his Pro-Life position, telling Forbes, “I am pro-life because I’m following the word of the Bible.” Like other prominent black celebrities, West condemned America’s largest abortion business for the eugenic origins of the abortion industry in America. He told Forbes, “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.”
