Carly Fiorina: Accompanying a friend to an abortion at Planned Parenthood made me Pro-Life

On Wednesday night, Carly Fiorina took to multiple social media platforms simultaneously to deliver a live question-and-answer broadcast.  Fiorina has been the most outspokenly Pro-Life candidate since announcing her intention to run for president in May, and she took the opportunity on Wednesday to address several pressing issues related to the Pro-Life cause.  And she has been crucified by the Left for maintaining her Pro-Life position specifically because she is a woman.

In her opening answer, Fiorina named two instances of failure that have stemmed from inaction on the part of establishment politicians in Congress to pass Pro-Life protections.  “We are still funding Planned Parenthood,” she said, and, “We still haven’t passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.”  De-funding Planned Parenthood and passing the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would affect substantial change for the current abortion landscape in America.  Fiorina honing in on these two issues demonstrates her synchronicity with the united strategy of the American Pro-Life cause at-large.

Later, Fiorina shared the experience that initially galvanized her to be outspokenly Pro-Life when she was a young woman:

I think sometimes people think, ‘Wow she’s a Silicon Valley CEO; she must be pro-choice.’  I was raised Pro-Life, but frankly I didn’t think that much about it until one day in my early 20s.  One of my very dear friends asked me to accompany her to a Planned Parenthood clinic where she got an abortion.  And I watched what that did to her, physically, emotionally, spiritually.  I observed as no one in Planned Parenthood gave her any discussion of any options at all.  And then I met my husband, Frank, whom you just met, and I learned that his mother was told to abort him.  But she was a woman of great grace and great courage and she chose to bring her son into the world and he was the joy of her life and he has been the rock of mine.  And then, a little bit later in our marriage, I learned that I could not have children of my own.  And so I learned in a whole different way how precious a gift Life is. 

Fiorina acknowledged that Americans are divided on the abortion issue, but underscored the areas in which Americans have found common ground, noting that the Democrats’ platform on abortion is much more radical than mainstream opinion on the issue:

Now I understand that not everyone agrees with me.  But I also understand that the vast majority Americans have found common ground on this issue.  They are horrified by what the Democrats’ position on abortion actually is.  The Democrats’ position on abortion is that it’s not a Life until it’s born… Barbara Boxer said that it’s not a Life until it leaves the hospital.  Most people are horrified to learn that a 13-year-old girl doesn’t need her mother’s permission to get an abortion, but she does need her mother’s permission to get a tan at a tanning salon.  And the American people have found common ground on one other thing: the majority of women, the majority of young people, the majority of Americans now think that abortion for any reason at all after five months is wrong. 

Finally, Fiorina spoke to the contentious issue of de-funding Planned Parenthood.  Fiorina has been mercilessly attacked by abortion activists for her stance against Planned Parenthood and for approaching Planned Parenthood’s actions with unflinching condemnation.  She told viewers:

And finally, taxpayers shouldn’t be funding Planned Parenthood.  And we can’t allow Planned Parenthood to traffic in body parts as they have been.  There are many people who are trying to silence me on that issue, but the truth is very clear, because Planned Parenthood announced several weeks ago that they would no longer take compensation for fetal tissue.  Which is as clear an admission that this is what they’ve been doing as anything else you can find.

Indeed, as Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser and Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance illustrated in a Time op-ed earlier that day, “it was Fiorina who took it upon herself to put the controversy caused by the Planned Parenthood videos front and center in the presidential campaign.”  The two note that Fiorina has taken the conversation further than any other candidate, which may speak to the priority Fiorina personally assigns to the defense of Life as a presidential candidate.  “Her display of courage and compassion at the Reagan Library Republican debate went into unchartered territory for a presidential race,” said Dannenfelser and Nance, “because, finally, it was a woman candidate who was willing to take the issue head-on when given a national stage.”