Thursday, March 28, 2024

Fighting Fiorina Nails EMILY’s List to Wall

Over the weekend, “Fox News Sunday” hosted one of the most epic abortion debates that I have seen in a very long time. EMILY’s List VP Jess McIntosh and former Hewlett-Packard CEO and Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina got heated as they debated the recent undercover videos that exposed Planned Parenthood doctors discussing the sale of fetal organs and tissue:

Fiorina nailed it at the outset, saying:

This has nothing to do with whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life. This has to do with the moral foundation of our nation. If a woman was sitting outside of Planned Parenthood in her OB-GYN’s office looking at this ultrasound at the same point in her pregnancy, her doctor would say to her, ‘look at your baby. Look at its heartbeat. Look at its fingers and toes.’

Planned Parenthood has lobbied against a woman’s opportunity to look at an ultrasound before she makes an incredibly difficult choice to end the unborn life within her. And yet they are using that same technology to harvest body parts, which they claim are not a life, in order to sell them to save another life. It’s unbelievably hypocritical and I find it astounding that anyone can defend it.

McIntosh of EMILY’s List pushed back but continuously struggled to defend Planned Parenthood and their sale of fetal organs. Time and time again, McIntosh fell flat and was pummeled by Fiorina. After countless failures, McIntosh then tried to salvage her position by using the typical Planned Parenthood talking point that the videos were “heavily edited.” To which Fiorina responded,

I find it fascinating that Planned Parenthood, EMILY’s List and the rest of the pro-abortion lobby are now suddenly so concerned about a heavily edited video. I don’t recall them ever being concerned about a heavily edited video of Mitt Romney at a fundraiser. I don’t remember them being concerned about Edward Snowden. We’ve had a lot of things where information has come out that we needed to see. So instead of going after the people who have put out this video information that we clearly need to see, let’s talk about the issue here.

Of course they’re trying to change the subject. Of course they’re trying to say this is life saving research. I find it amazing that this group of pro-abortion lobbyists continue to say that they are protecting women’s health. Really? Late-term abortion is demonstrably bad for women’s health. They continue to lobby against parental notification. Really? It’s protecting a teenager’s health that she can go to a tanning salon or get a tattoo with her mother’s permission but get an abortion without her mother’s permission?

This is not about someone else’s health. This is about a woman’s health. A woman’s opportunity to have all of the choices in front of her and it is about about a life that she is bearing.

Fiorina continued:

Once again, I’m pro-life as you know but there are plenty of pro-choice women who are horrified by this as they should be. And by the way, after hours honestly. The fact that these officials can sit here swilling their wine, eating their salad, laughing over getting a Lamborghini and talk about specimens and fetal tissue, I find horrifying and the majority of Americans do as well.

Then, when McIntosh seemed to have no other talking points, she accused Fiorina and the Republican Party of playing politics on this issue. To which Fiorina replied, “For heaven’s sake, politicians are involved in this debate all the time. EMILY’s List, a pro-abortion lobby organization, is involved in politics every single day, and consistently EMILY’s List lobbies for pro-abortion candidates. There’s no justification anymore for federal funding of Planned Parenthood.”

Carly Fiorina completely nailed every aspect of this interview. Her fellow GOP candidates could learn something from her strategy to meet even controversial issues like abortion head-on. I hope the other Republican candidates take note, and I hope to see her in the first debate on August 6th.

Kate Bryan is the Director of Communications for American Principles in Action.

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