On Sunday's Kasie DC show, during a segment on the new abortion laws passed by a number of conservative states, MSNBC host Kasie Hunt only made room for reactions from liberals as Planned Parenthood president Leana Weng and National Urban League president Marc Morial were allowed to participate in the segment.
At 8:35 p.m. Eastern, Hunt introduced the segment by negatively describing the laws as a "rollback of abortion rights" rather than giving it a more positive description of an expansion of rights for unborn babies as she also updated viewers that the last abortion clinic in Missouri may close in the near future: "This week, Louisiana joined the growing wave of states to roll back abortion rights after Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards signed a bill that will ban abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy."
She soon added that, if the clinic in Missouri closes, it will be "the first state in this country without access to an abortion clinic since 1974."
Hunt then brought aboard Wen, and began by asking her if she is "confident" or "concerned" about how the court fight will go in Missouri, leading Wen to claim that there is a "state of emergency about women's health" in the U.S. because of the new abortion restrictions, and fretted that Missouri women might have to travel outside the state for "something that should be a right." Even though there is risk in having an abortion, Wen called the restrictions a "public health threat" that is "endangering women's lives."
Without pushing back on Wen's negative view of abortion laws, Hunt followed up:
So there are nine states that have passed significant anti-abortion legislation in 2019. Missouri, Alabama -- which of course has a law which is possibly the most draconian -- Georgia, Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas ,Utah, Louisiana. This is clearly something that has broken through both in these legislatures, but also publicly.
What have you at Planned Parenthood seen -- what is the response from women who pay attention to your organization, donate to your organization whom you rely on as activists, Have you seen kind of an upswing in attention and concern from them?
Wen declared that many are "outraged" at the laws, and that there is an "attack on women's health and rights" from "anti-women's health politicians." Instead of responding to Wen, Hunt then turned to asking Morial how he feels about a fellow Democratic governor siding with Republicans on abortion: "Marc Morial, you were governor of New Orleans -- mayor, excuse me, I'm sorry. Are you disappointed in the governor is my question to you?
Morial complained that he is "very disappointed in the governor," declared that "there is a tremendous amount of outrage and a sense of betrayal," and then warned about "economic consequences" in some states because of boycotts.
Again without making an argument in the pro-life direction, she turned to Wen and asked about whether there were more plans to "put pressure" on those states through economic pressure.
