It's Called 'Abortion', Professor Harris-Perry

February 3rd, 2012 9:05 PM

Melissa Harris-Perry might have set a new world record in the use of euphemism to avoid calling abortion by its name.

The Tulane professor, soon to be a host of her own MSNBC show, used a string of politically-correct evasions to say anything but the a-word during her appearance on Al Sharpton's show this evening.  It came in the context of discussing the Komen Foundation's cave on funding Planned Parenthood. Video after the jump.



If people like Harris-Perry are proud of their advocacy of abortion rights, why don't they have the moral courage to call it by its name?

AL SHARPTON: And I don't think people understand how vile towards women's right to choose, women's right to deal with their own options, that the right wing has become in this day.

MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY: Well look: this would have been a masterful strategy, had it worked, right?  Because what it did was to separate out good girls from bad girls, which has always been an effective way to limit some women from having having the same freedoms and opportunities, right? So if breast cancer is separated out completely from Planned Parenthood; if Planned Parenthood can't provide breast-cancer screenings, cervical-cancer screenings.  If all they're doing is providing reproductive choice opportunities like birth control and pregnancy terminations, then you can after them because those are the bad girls, those are the people who have done bad things.

Note: Sharpton was no slouch himself when it came to abortion euphemisms.  "Women's righ to deal with their own options" was a new one by me.