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Tucker Carlson

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October 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Defending the indefensible is tricky business. Honestly embracing abortion for what it is tends to scare away anyone with a semi-functioning conscience, so its apologists generally find it easier to play dumb about prenatal development or, better yet, change the subject entirely to unspecified “women’s healthcare.”

So when a pro-lifer cuts through the spin by bluntly stating the truth, the results are always telling.

Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson did just that Thursday night in the following segment:

It concerns a Los Angeles ordinance forcing city contractors to disclose whatever ties they may have to the National Rifle Association, which guest Ethan Bearman defended on the grounds that it was pressuring an organization whose policies allegedly endanger people’s lives. Carlson decided to test that theory with another organization California likes more than the NRA.

How about mandatory disclosure? You give money to Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood kills people! Literally, kills people, the leading cause of death of Americans […] Shouldn’t we know if you’ve given money to Planned Parenthood?

To his credit, Bearman displayed some intellectual consistency by suggesting that would be “fair game” if a local jurisdiction chose to require it. But judging by initial reactions, most won’t get that far through the segment before seeing red.

Media Matters highlighted the “literally kills people” and “leading cause of death” quotes without comment, as if the statements’ outrageousness was self-evident. Twitter is chock-full of incredulous mockery.

In a piece that’s been promoted by multiple “news” sites including MSN and the San Francisco Gate, The Wrap’s Jon Levine complains that Carlson “accused Planned Parenthood of systemic murder” and that Bearman didn’t challenge it.

The Planned Parenthood charge from Carlson is not a new one for many conservatives. Though it went unexplored Thursday, he was almost certainly referring to the organization’s role in providing abortions for women which has stirred ire among Republicans for decades. Planned Parenthood also provides a suite of other women’s health services that was even praised by Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

Yeah, the president foolishly praised the Walmart of abortions during the campaign, but thankfully appears to have gotten over it. Like clockwork, Levine “refutes” Carlson by changing the subject to PP’s “other women’s health services” (never mind that they’ve been declining for years, they’re not 97% of PP’s business after all, or that some are an outright lie). But note what he and Media Matters don’t do: present an argument that anything Carlson said was false.

Modern biology has well-understood, agreed-upon criteria for figuring out something’s alive or dead, human or animal, and an organism or mere organic matter. Countless medical and scientific textbooks will tell you that a newly-conceived embryo passes all three tests. Some abortionists and pro-abortion activists will even admit it.

As for whether abortion is America’s leading cause of death, the Centers for Disease Control’s leading cause of legally-recognized deaths is heart disease, which killed 635,260 people in 2016. By contrast, the CDC reports at least 652,639 abortions in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available (while warning that several states don’t report any of their abortions), while the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute puts the number at 926,200 the same year. Either way, abortion is deadlier.

Oh, and trying to dock Tucker on a semantic technicality won’t work, either. Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary, American Heritage Dictionary, Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Oxford Living Dictionaries, and Vocabulary.com all recognize that, contrary to the crackpot theories of abortion zealots, “person” and “human” mean the same thing.

What’s most remarkable about incidents like this is the way the people outraged by the truth don’t even try to make a case for why it isn’t the truth. Does the need to prove one’s position simply not occur to the average pro-abort, because their wokeness is self-justifying? Do they know deep down they can’t prove it, and hope their followers won’t notice?

The answer is likely “all of the above,” a combination that might be good for hyping up fellow travelers but doesn’t exactly offer a solid foundation. Skilled pro-abortion sophists are the exception; if pro-lifers simply insist on the blunt truth the way Tucker Carlson phrased it, most of their bluster will collapse for all to see.

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Calvin Freiburger is a Wisconsin-based conservative writer and 2011 graduate of Hillsdale College. His commentary and analysis have been featured on NewsReal Blog, Live Action, and various other conservative websites. Before joining LifeSiteNews, he spent two years in Washington, DC, working to build support for the Life at Conception Act with the National Pro-Life Alliance, then worked a year and a half as assistant editor of TheFederalistPapers.org. You can follow him on Twitter @CalFreiburger, and check out his Substack: calvinfreiburger.substack.com.