Pop superstar Taylor Swift, 34, publicly endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz after the debate this week, specifically noting their support for abortion in her endorsement.
On Instagram, Swift posted about her decision to endorse the Harris-Walz ticket, writing:
I’m voting for [Kamala Harris] because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate [Tim Walz], who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.
Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, responded to Swift’s endorsement on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Taylor Swift coming out for Harris/Walz is so sad.
Her stated reasons include Tim Walz's support of "a woman's right to her own body."
Walz supports totally unrestricted abortion in Minnesota, even to the point of leaving babies who survive botched abortions to die. His policy…
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) September 11, 2024
“It’s hard to believe Taylor really understands this. Even her use of the euphemistic phrase ‘her own body’ to justify abortion, reveals an attempt at a moral and intellectual distancing from what abortion actually is,” Rose wrote. “Taylor’s statement shows the extreme cognitive dissonance so many people today are plagued by: in the support of ‘the right to her own body,’ the right to rip into pieces a living, developing baby’s body is demanded. There’s zero acknowledgment in Taylor’s statement or thought given to that baby – that baby’s fundamental rights, her tiny body, her future.
“The truth is this: abortion kills a baby, and our rights as women do NOT include the right to kill a baby. Never have, never will. No amount of relentless propaganda and fear-mongering will change that fact.”
Swift has generally not been an outspoken political activist, though she has on several rare occasions indicated that she is pro-abortion. In 2019, she expressed disbelief over pro-life laws being instituted, protecting preborn children from abortion. “I mean, obviously, I’m pro-choice, and I just can’t believe this is happening,” she said at the time. “I can’t believe we’re here. It’s really shocking and awful. And I just wanna do everything I can for 2020. I wanna figure out exactly how I can help, what are the most effective ways to help. ’Cause this is just… This is not it.”
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision, Swift was one of many celebrities who publicly reacted, writing on social media, “I’m absolutely terrified that this is where we are – that after so many decades of people fighting for women’s rights to their own bodies, today’s decision has stripped us of that.”
The problem with Swift’s reasoning is that abortion isn’t something that merely affects a woman’s body. The entire pro-life movement rests upon the fact that the preborn child — though temporarily residing within the woman’s uterus — is a distinct, individual, living and growing human being. If this was not the case — if the child in the womb was not a human being, killed by abortion — then the pro-life movement would simply pack up and go home… or more likely, never would have existed in the first place.
Abortion is controversial because it’s not like choosing to consume an ice cream cone, or even to have an IUD inserted; these are choices that women can and do make about their bodies. But induced abortion intentionally kills a human being. There is a vast difference. As Kelsey Hazzard of Secular Pro-Life pointed out in 2019 (emphasis added):
Suppose there were a bill on the table that would make it easy for women who have not been diagnosed with breast cancer, but who fear such a diagnosis in the future (due to family history, the BRCA gene, or any other reason), to obtain elective mastectomies on demand. Government budget authorities have confirmed that the proposal is financially sound. This is a law that would not cause a single human death, but that would undoubtedly increase a woman’s control of her own body.
Can you imagine the National Right to Life Committee, Susan B. Anthony List, Americans United for Life, and so on lobbying against such a bill? I, for one, cannot. There would be no reason for them to do that. Likewise, I have a hard time picturing pro-life stalwarts in the House of Representatives voting it down multiple times and celebrating its defeat.
A woman’s exercise of bodily autonomy by itself doesn’t fuel outrage; it is only when that exercise ends in the death of a human child that the pro-life movement rallies its troops.
A woman cannot choose to kill innocent people with her body, and protections for innocent human beings should remain consistent, regardless of that human being’s temporary location. The woman’s preborn child is not an invader who infiltrated the woman’s personal territory; the child is quite literally growing inside an organ designed specifically for the growth and protection of that child… he is exactly where he should be, biologically. Sex has the potential to reproduce other humans, and intentionally killing those humans is no one’s “right.”
As Kirsten Watson, wife of NFL star Benjamin Watson, explained in a Live Action “Pro-Life Replies” video, a child in utero is not part of the woman’s body. Watson, who was pregnant with twins at the time of filming, said, “It’s not just MY body here. There are three bodies. Some people try to say that ‘children in the womb are part of the woman’s body’ – but come on. If a child in the womb were literally part of a woman’s body, like her arm or leg, then I would have three hearts, three brains, thirty fingers — and because there are two boys in there, I’d be mostly male.”
And while yes, a preborn child is reliant upon his or her mother to survive, this is not something that changes immediately after birth. A human being’s level of dependence or independence does not determine his or her worth; all human beings have an intrinsic right to life, regardless of whether or not they rely on someone to care for them and keep them alive.
“An infant once born is still completely dependent on the bodies of others for survival, but no one thinks an infant lacks the right to life. The weakness and dependence of children is reason to give them more care and support, not less. Dependency does not eliminate humanity. In fact, dependency enriches humanity,” Watson said. “Let’s have a community in which bodily rights and bodily autonomy means we respect, protect, and support one another, including the weakest among us.”
