This past Friday, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Washington state was set on fire. Fortunately no one was hurt. Unfortunately, these few and far between acts of violence committed by misguided lone wolves give the left ammo to make their case that the pro-life side is really pro-death. That’s exactly what Ana Kasparian, one of the hosts of the Young Turks, a popular left-wing talk show on Youtube, did in her September 7 article for Raw Story, “The deadly hypocrisy of the ‘pro-life’ movement.”
In her article, Kasparian used arguments sophisticated enough for a 9th grade debate class to contend that the pro-life movement is filled with “[r]eligious zealots” who’d rather save “non-viable zygotes” than “living, breathing human beings.”
Below are her more absurd conclusions.
Violence against abortionists is inherent to the pro-life movement
Despite how she frames the issue, acts of violence are neither condoned by pro-life leaders or are as common as the left makes them out to be.
Kasparian uses data from the pro-choice National Abortion Federation, which lists a total of six murders in the past 20 years – hardly proof of a steady or rising trend in violence. Before Dr. George Tiller's murder in 2009, the last time an abortionist was killed was in 1998. In fact, the numbers for acts of violence against abortion providers has dramatically dropped since the mid-90s.
Furthermore, not a single prominent pro-life leader has condoned violence against abortionists or clinics. For Kasparian to bring these up is a moot point.
You can’t be pro-life if you’re for capital punishment
Then she brings up one of the more illogical arguments against pro-life conservatives – equating capital punishment with abortion.
Kasparian wrote,
“While these direct acts of violence are clear examples of how disingenuous right-wingers are in regard to how much they value human lives, one can also look to their conflicting political beliefs.”
She goes on to state that 33 states have limits on abortion and 27 of these same states permit capital punishment.
This is just a distraction. Kasparian has to know that this is an apples to oranges comparison. The state following its laws and carrying out the sentences imposed on the most heinous killers is manifestly different than ending an innocent life.
Conservatives don't care about poor children so they shouldn’t have a say in if they're born
The last mind-numbing point Kasparian made is the old platitude, “conservatives don’t care about the poor” because otherwise they’d be major advocates for welfare – or as she called it, “public assistance.”
“While these extremist anti-choicers are quick to threaten or take the lives of people they disagree with on abortion, they’re rarely seen protesting for public assistance to help those in lower socioeconomic statuses so they can take care of their children,” Kasparian wrote. [emphasis added]
Does Kasparian have trouble differentiating between public vs. private charity? Conservatives believe that the private sector -- charities, individuals, churches, can better provide for the poor rather than giving that responsibility to a large unwieldy government to dispense by burdening society’s taxpayers.
But Kasparian pretending to care about “the children” is laughable. As she ends the article, the real motive behind her attack comes out:
“This is not a question of life or death – it’s a question of power,” she wrote. Pro-lifers and conservatives “can’t handle” and “despise” the idea of “female independence” and that is why, she argued, they are anti-abortion.
So it all falls back to “women’s rights” and "female empowerment" again. Shocker!
