Conservative host Ben Shapiro appeared on the BBC, Thursday, in a contentious interview and attacked the bias and agenda of the network. After host Andrew Neil derided Georgia’s new pro-life abortion bill as “extreme,” “hard policies” that would “take us back to the dark ages,” Shapiro unloaded, “Okay, so you’re supposedly an objective calling polices with which you disagree barbaric.”
Neil huffed that “I’m not taking a view” of abortion. Shapiro shot back: “Sir, you just suggested that the pro-life position is inherently brutal and terrible. So, I’m asking you, as an objective journalist, would you ask the same question to a pro-choice advocate by calling their position brutal and horrible?”
Neil doubled down: “What I’m asking you is why is it that a bill banning abortion after a woman has been pregnant for six weeks is not a return to the dark ages?” The conservative author and commentator called out the cultural bias of the BBC:
My answer is something called science. Human life exists at conception. It ought to be protected. You purport to be an objective journalist. BBC purports to be an objective, down-the-middle network. It obviously is not and never has been. And you as a journalist are proceeding to call one side of the political aisle ignorant, barbaric and sending us back to the dark ages.
Neil is an editor of the British Spectator and not a man of the left, as Shapiro initially thought. (He's since admitted this.) However, it’s easy to see why one would have been confused. The classifying of the pro-life position as “extreme,” “hard” and “taking us back to the dark ages” is hardly objective. It’s typical of the sneering BBC view of anything culturally conservative.
A partial transcript of the segment is below:
BBC
5/9/19
ANDREW NEIL: Some of the ideas that are popular in your side of politics would seem to take us back to the dark ages. Georgia, new abortion laws, which you are much in favor of, that a woman who miscarries could get 30 years. A Georgian woman who travels to another state for an abortion could get ten years. These are extreme, hard policies.
BEN SHAPIRO: Well, okay, a couple things — I’m not sure — are you an objective journalist or are you an opinion journalist?
NEIL: I’m a journalist that asks questions.
SHAPIRO: Okay, so you’re supposedly an objective calling polices with which you disagree barbaric and suggesting one side of the political aisle has ideas. So, I just want to point out — I wish you would just be honest with your own biases. Are you a member of—
NEIL: I know that broadcasting in America is now so polarized that on one program you have the left and another you just have the right. My job is to question those that have strong views and put an alternative to them. If you were an anti-abortion [sic] person, I would be putting pro-abortion questions to you. But you are an anti-abortion person.
SHAPIRO: Really? Would you —
NEIL: So why don’t you return to my question?SHAPIRO: Sir, sir. I’m happy to answer your question. Please answer this one. Would you suggest that a late term abortion is brutal?
NEIL: I’m not taking a view of the situation. I’m asking you the question.
SHAPIRO: Sir, you just suggested that the pro-life position is inherently brutal and terrible. So, I’m asking you, as an objective journalist, would you ask the same question to a pro-choice advocate by calling their position brutal and horrible?
NEIL: What I’m asking you is why is it that a bill banning abortion after a woman has been pregnant for six weeks is not a return to the dark ages? What’s your answer?
SHAPIRO: My answer is something called science. Human life exists at conception. It ought to be protected. You purport to be an objective journalist. BBC purports to be an objective, down-the-middle network. It obviously is not and never has been. And you as a journalist are proceeding to call one side of the political aisle ignorant, barbaric and sending us back to the dark ages. Why don’t you just say that you’re on the left? Is that so hard for you? Why can’t you just be honest? Seriously? It’s a serious question.
NEIL: Mr. Shapiro, if you only knew how ridiculous that statement is, you wouldn’t have said it. So, let’s move on.
SHAPIRO: I think it’s pretty evident from your own questions exactly what you are, sir.
