Superstar singer and talk show host Kelly Clarkson recently had Hillary Clinton as a guest on her show, where the two discussed abortion.
Clinton appeared on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” and decried the recent Arizona Supreme Court ruling, which upheld a law protecting most preborn children from abortion, as “cruelty.” Clarkson, meanwhile, argued that voter apathy has allowed laws protecting preborn human beings from abortion to be put in place across the country.
“I feared it would happen but I hoped it wouldn’t happen,” Clinton said. “Now here we are in the middle of this very difficult period for women in about half the states in our country, who cannot get the care that they need. And the old law in Arizona is without exceptions and the danger to women’s lives as well as to our right to make our own decisions about our bodies and ourselves is so profound.”
What Clinton left out is the fact that 1) laws generally tend to regulate and restrict what we can and cannot do with ourselves and our bodies — especially if it involves harm to others, and 2) induced abortion (which involves the intentional and direct killing of the preborn child) isn’t necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life. Emergency delivery treats both with the human dignity they deserve. Miscarriage treatments, emergency deliveries, and treatment for ectopic pregnancies aren’t abortions and they are legal in every state.
The conversation turned emotional when Clarkson recounted her own pregnancies, during which she was hospitalized..
“I literally asked God, this is a real thing, to just take me and my son in the hospital for the second time, because I was like, ‘It’s the worst thing,’” she said, continuing, “It was my decision and I’m so glad I did it, I love my babies, but to make someone… and you don’t realize how hard it is. The fact that you would take that away from someone, that can literally kill them. The fact that if they’re raped by their family member and they have to — it’s just like insane to me.”
But again, Clarkson appears to be conflating induced, elective abortion with legitimate and standard medical care utilized to protect the life of a pregnant woman (and the preborn child, if possible) in an emergency situation. Emergency situations during pregnancy, including things like PPROM and preeclampsia, do not necessitate induced abortion (intentional killing) as the standard of care.
Of course, pro-life laws have not been known to cause women’s deaths; despite popular myth, women were not dying by the thousands from illegal back-alley abortions before Roe v. Wade was enacted.
NARAL founder Dr. Bernard Nathanson (who later became pro-life) admitted that the number of women dying from illegal abortions that was fed to the media was entirely fabricated as a means of scaring society into legalizing abortion. Researcher Christopher Tietze has said the actual number of deaths from abortion — in 1945, decades before Roe v. Wade — was less than 1,000 annually, and had already been declining, largely due to the advent of antibiotics and better medical procedures.
The Washington Post’s previous fact check on the issue cited both Tietze and former Planned Parenthood medical director Mary Steichen Calderone, who acknowledged that the mortality rate had been declining due to antibiotics, and that 90% of illegal abortions were being committed by trained physicians.
How many women died from abortions, both legal and illegal, before Roe v. Wade? Very, very few. And today, of course, we have even greater medical advances that make intentionally killing children wholly unnecessary.
A 1975 report from the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine also found that the total number of deaths from abortion “has been below 500 since 1958 and below 100 since 1971.” The Washington Post likewise explained, “The CDC began collecting data on abortion mortality in 1972, the year before Roe was decided. In 1972, the number of deaths in the United States from legal abortions was 24 and from illegal abortions 39, according to the CDC.”
Clarkson also argued that the country is “going backwards” by allowing an Arizona law enacted in 1864 to stand, as she said we “know a lot more now” — presumably meaning that the country should be embracing the homicide of preborn human beings. But if anything, advances in science and medicine have further proven the humanity of the preborn child, only serving to show why laws to protect them are necessary.
So, indeed, we do “know a lot more now.” And that makes intentional killing by abortion inexcusable.
