Throughout the Democratic presidential debates, all of the candidates have agreed on the most anti-Life platform in our nation’s history. Since the Democrat Party has embraced a radical abortion stance, there were not even any questions about Life issues at previous debates! There was an understanding that all the candidates support the killing of preborn children for any reason throughout all nine months of pregnancy.
That is, until the most recent debate when Tulsi Gabbard claimed she agreed with the abortion industry’s slogan of yesteryear that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” The reaction from abortion activists was predictable: outrage. Despite the fact that Gabbard said nothing to defend the innocent lives slaughtered in the womb, merely, “I agree with Hillary Clinton on one thing. In the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was president and she said abortion should be ‘safe, legal, and rare.’ I think she’s correct.”
Gabbard’s milquetoast questioning of the status quo in the abortion party of America was decried by anti-Life activists and media. According to VICE, Gabbard “stigmatized” abortion by pointing out that even abortion radicals should seek to limit the number of preborn children violently killed in the womb. Her inexcusable sin in the eyes of the abortion mob was not championing the preferred slogan: “Abortion on demand and without apology.”
Amid the tongue-lashing, Gabbard did receive support from an unlikely ally: ousted Planned Parenthood president Leana Wen. In a tweet, Wen wrote, “I don’t agree with @TulsiGabbard on a lot, but do appreciate that she brought up the third rail for Democrats: that abortion should be ‘safe, legal, and rare.’ We should reduce the need for abortions by investing in prevention.” The fact that Wen seemed to think she would be reducing the number of abortions through “prevention” by running America’s largest abortion business is laughable, and explains why she made such an abrupt departure due to “philosophical differences.”
Like Gabbard, Wen received immediate backlash for her comments. Many people expressed confusion over how Wen, with a desire to reduce the number of abortions, took a job at America’s abortion corporation, Planned Parenthood. As the ever-charming Amelia Bonow (founder of #ShoutYourAbortion, who claimed “my abortion made me happy”) tweeted, “HOW DID YOU GET THAT JOB AND WHY IN THE F*** DID YOU WANT IT.”
Reactions like Bonow’s unmask the truth about Planned Parenthood. To everyone who has been paying attention, the fact that Planned Parenthood does not provide signification “preventative” services is obvious. Planned Parenthood is an abortion business.
The choice of quoting Hillary Clinton from the ‘90s is fitting, because Gabbard’s quote highlights one of the reasons Clinton lost the 2016 election to Pro-Life President Donald Trump. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, Clinton had long abandoned her claims that abortion should be rare, “and by rare, I mean rare.” Instead, Clinton took on a radical stance, refusing to condemn the killing of a preborn child at any stage of development. This anti-Life extremism helped propel Pro-Life candidate Trump into the White House.
The fundamental mistake the Democrats are making is assuming that by changing the way we talk about things, we can change what things are. Anti-Life pundits are claiming that when Gabbard and Wen say abortion should be “rare” they are “slamming and disrespecting” mothers who have undergone abortion. Elsewhere, abortion radicals have claimed that wanting abortions to be “rare” was part of the “awfulization” of abortion that made the life-ending procedure “stigmatized” in our society.
Suggesting that the killing of preborn children should be rare — or better yet nonexistent — does not make abortion grotesque and inhumane. Abortion is grotesque and inhumane. The more the Democrat Party cows down to the abortion mob and refuses to acknowledge this, the more voters they will alienate.