Beto O'Rourke's Statement About Planned Parenthood Proves He Knows Nothing About the Organization
Beto O’Rourke has outlived his flavor of the month period, which means that enthusiasm is lagging and his crowds can be measured at roughly 35 people or so. (Not a joke.)
The current flavor of the month is Pete Buttigieg, who insists that his campaign has “outlived the flavor of the month period.” Right. Wait until they discover literally anyone else with actual policy positions.
But I digress. The point is that when the attention goes away, you start getting desperate and/or start making mistakes. I’m not quite sure which one this one falls under, but at a campaign event this week O’Rourke said that Planned Parenthood was in the business of saving lives.
Yes, really.
This wonderful slice of why O’Rourke probably won’t be the nominee happened at a coffee shop near the University of Nevada-Reno on Thursday, according to TheBlaze. It involved a questioner who identified herself as a student there and a “Planned Parenthood supporter,” to which O’Rourke responded, “Right on.”
“I’m deeply concerned about the lies that are being spread about abortion later in pregnancy,” she said, in a tone that no way suggested this was read off of a piece of paper.
“There is no such thing as abortion up until or after birth. And in the 1 percent of the time that a woman has an abortion later in pregnancy, it is due to a diagnosis of severe fetal abnormalities or a serious risk to the woman’s health.”
So, what would he do to protect women’s access to abortion? His answer managed to be both rambling and deeply wrong at the same time.
“No one wants to see people die in the wealthiest and most powerful country on the face of the planet for lack of care, so when I connect back that family planning clinics — Planned Parenthood, to be specific, in Texas is saving the lives of our fellow women, and it’s a life-and-death matter in this country,” O’Rourke said.
“Three times as deadly for women of color in this maternal mortality crisis that we have right now. I think I can find some common ground to ensure that we see the larger picture and our national public shared interest going forward.”
“So I’ll make sure that I respect those with differing points of view, that I’m listening to everybody, that I share what I just shared with you, but never compromise on the fundamental principle that health care also means every woman makes her own decisions about her own life. And that will be the test for us and whoever we nominate to the Supreme Court.”
Yes, the organization that helps abort over 330,000 babies a year is in the business of saving lives, according to Robert O’Rourke. Right on.
This, I suppose, is a fundamental difference between the two parties who will contest this election. O’Rourke says that he’ll “respect those with differing points of view,” making sure “that I’m listening to everybody.” Yet he believes a ghoulish organization whose respect for incipient human life is less than zero is actually in the business of saving it because, well, that’s what everyone around him says. Why ought he believe anything different?
Even if he didn’t believe Planned Parenthood was ending lives via abortion, where is the evidence that they’re saving them by doing so? And yes, please save me the email that the organization offers health screenings; it’s very obvious from all available context that he’s talking almost exclusively about the right to an abortion, outside of desultory mentions of how “we’ve made it so hard for women to get any kind of health care at all.” (Right after this, of course, he says “… including access to a legal, safe abortion.”)
The only evidence that his analysis might go beyond this is where he talks about the “maternal mortality crisis” which is disproportionately affecting women of color. Beyond the fact that this seems like a non sequitur, there’s nothing to indicate Planned Parenthood is doing anything to alleviate this aside from stopping births from happening — which is a lot different than stopping a “maternal mortality crisis.”
I also find it interesting O’Rourke seems to imply, given the abortion-centric context of this question-and-answer, that Planned Parenthood is somehow helping people of color through its most well-known service — as if terminating pregnancies was somehow part of the answer to racial inequalities in maternity outcomes. There’s certainly a very uncharitable light in which this line of thinking can be viewed, but I’ll merely leave O’Rourke’s remark and that observation out there for summary judgment.
Either way, this is what . He’s going to reach out to people who don’t agree with him, in the reddest parts of America, by listening to them and then patiently telling them why they’re wrong. In this case, one would assume, that would consist of hearing pro-life voters out and then saying Planned Parenthood saves lives. This may be a reductio ad absurdum of O’Rourke’s point, but not by as much as you might think.
I know there are a lot of months before we start voting on the Democrat nomination, but there are also a lot of candidates to be the next flavor of the month. One thing’s for sure — no matter how obsequious he is to the pro-abortion faction of the party, he’s not going to regain that status with the absurd claim that Planned Parenthood is in the business of lifesaving.
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