WASHINGTON, D.C., June 19, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Earlier today, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton skewered “billion-dollar corporations” that “wield their economic power as a weapon to punish the American people for daring to challenge their pro-abortion extremism.”
The Arkansas Republican devoted a speech on the U.S. Senate floor to criticizing the CEOs of hundreds of companies for their loud criticism of states that have passed laws strengthening protections for preborn humans.
“These reforms are the work of the pro-life movement, which fights for the most vulnerable among us every day,” said Cotton. “The pro-life movement seeks to change the laws of our country in the noblest traditions of our country, working within our democratic system so that our laws ultimately live up to our highest principle: That ‘all men are created equal,’ in the words of our Declaration. That all have a basic right to life.”
“Politically correct CEOs shouldn’t be in the business of threatening normal Americans,” he continued. “But that’s exactly what we’ve seen lately.”
The senator noted that “cultural elites” and large corporations are hoping to damage the economies of states whose legislatures have passed pro-life laws, naming Disney, Netflix, and Warner Media as examples.
“And just last Monday, the New York Times ran a full-page advertisement organized by the pro-abortion lobby and signed by the CEOs of hundreds of companies saying that legal protections for unborn babies are ‘bad for business.’ How disgusting is that?” asked Cotton. “Caring for a little baby is ‘bad for business.’”
“Now, I get why outfits like Planned Parenthood or NARAL would say babies are ‘bad for business.’ Abortion is their business, after all, and they’re just protecting [their] market share.”
Cotton went on to make a point Tucker Carlson has frequently emphasized on his nightly television show.
“But what about those other CEOs? Why do they think babies are ‘bad for business’? Perhaps because they want their workers to focus single-mindedly on working — not building a family and raising children,” he suggested. “All these politically correct CEOs want company men and women, not family men and women. They’ll support your individuality and self-expression just so long as you stay unattached and on the clock.”
The company &Pizza, whose CEO signed the pro-abortion New York Times ad, is a “perfect example” of this mindset, said Cotton. “&Pizza doesn’t even offer paid maternity leave to its employees — but it does celebrate their ‘oneness’ and ‘individuality.’ It’ll even pay employees to get a tattoo of the company logo. So if you want to be a walking billboard for your employer, &Pizza will foot the bill. But if you’re pregnant with a child, tough luck.”
“As liberal activists have lost control of the judiciary, they’ve turned to a different hub of power to impose their views on the rest of the country,” lamented Cotton. “This time it’s private power, located in a few mega-cities on the coasts.”
These coastal companies, along with a handful of foreign ones, are “hoping to rule the rest of us like colonies in the hinterlands.”
The senator also ripped left-wing states, like New York, Illinois, and Vermont, that have passed extremely pro-abortion laws this year.
“We’ve already begun to see the consequences of these laws, which strain so mightily to defy and deny the humanity of the unborn,” he said. “In New York City, prosecutors recently dropped a charge of abortion against a man who brutally stabbed to death his girlfriend and her unborn child. They dropped that charge because the pro-abortion law that had just passed the legislature in Albany removed all criminal penalties for killing an unborn child. According to the laws of New York State, that woman’s child never existed.”
Cotton ended on a positive note: “Despite the pressure campaign waged against us, I’m heartened, because I know the pro-life movement will carry on as it always has, speaking to the inherent dignity of every human life. Not everything can be measured on a corporate balance sheet. Some things are bigger and more important than the bottom line or what wealthy, politically correct corporations consider ‘bad for business.’ The cause of life is one of those issues worth fighting for.”