A briefing from Al Mohler
Yes, Many from the Left Do Support Abortion Up Until Birth: Jen Psaki’s Reign of Untruth on Abortion Continues
But next, as we consider the moral and cultural context in which we live, I want to point to a single tweet or at least a tweet posted on Twitter that is now X. It's by Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary to President Joe Biden. And it came as she was reacting to some of the words exchanged in the recent Republican presidential nomination debate.
She posted this, "No one supports abortion up until birth." Now, that's all she said in that tweet posted at 8:40 PM on August the 23rd, 2023. It received at least at this point, 1.6 million views. "No one supports abortion up until birth." But that is absolutely untrue. And Jen Psaki has to know what's untrue, but it is at least of a peace with the untrues she and the Biden administration have been telling about abortion now for a number of years. Again, she states, "No one supports abortion up until birth."
Now, let me tell you what she's probably thinking there. She's thinking that she has cover because the national news media won't go after this. They just accept that and nod and just say, "Nothing happening here, move on." But the reality is, that what you have right now is that the posture of the Democratic Party on the issue of abortion has shifted from fighting restrictions on abortion, say restriction by restriction to just arguing pretty straightforwardly, there should be no restrictions on abortion. Now, if there are no restrictions on abortion, that means that abortion indeed should take place or could take place right up until birth.
Now, Jen Psaki says, "No one supports abortion up until birth." But let's put it this way, if you are opposed to every single restriction on abortion up until birth, guess what? You are for the availability of abortion right up until birth. This is a war of words, and she knows it, and the mainstream media will go along with her. Indeed, they did go along with her. Where were those in the mainstream media to cry out and say, "Look, all these democratic candidates, indeed, the orthodoxy, the Democratic Party is to oppose any and all restrictions on abortion, which means that yes, one way or another, abortion will be available right up until the moment of birth."
Now, you say, "Well, look at some of the arguments being made by at least some Democrats, and yet the exemption language and even the legislation that they propose would effectively allow one way or another for abortion to be available right up until birth."
Jen Psaki is also after her service as press secretary of the White House. She's now a host for MSNBC, the more liberal of the cable television networks, and she made a statement in terms of a follow-up to her tweet. She said, "No one supports abortion up until birth." She said just a few days later that that, , "Seemed to really strike a nerve."
But then looking at how this story unfolds, she actually didn't make the case that it never happens. At one point, she said, "Again, this does not happen often, and when it does, you can see how painful this really is through personal stories." She went on to say that, "No one is rooting for late term abortions." And she said, that no one is running on an avowed platform about, "Aborting viable babies." More coverage on that by Miranda Nazzaro at thehill.com.
On her own MSNBC program, Jen Psaki said,, "This claim that Democrats support abortion, up until the moment of birth is entirely misleading." She said, "First of all, abortions past the point of fetal viability do not happen often. They are incredibly rare, and those that happen involve agonizing emotional and ethical decisions." So you notice how this shifts, it shifts from nobody does that, to well, they're only a minority of abortions, and in those cases they're very agonizing situations. But here's where things get very interesting, because Jen Psaki cited a study, and that study actually says a great deal that Jen Psaki didn't want her listeners or viewers to know.
John McCormack writing for National Review sets the issue straight when he says, "Psaki's claim simply isn't true. Contrary to the former White House press secretary's assertion, a majority of late term abortions kill the physically healthy babies of physically healthy mothers." He goes on and says, "Although a baby born at 21 weeks of pregnancy has survived his stay in the neonatal intensive care unit, data suggests that most abortions performed between 20 and 28 weeks of pregnancy are not performed for, 'reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.'" McCormack cites a 2013 study.
Dr. Warren Hern, who's an abortionist in Colorado, was profiled in the Atlantic. McCormack points to this, and he performs only late term abortions. As McCormick explains,, "Killing premature infants in the womb who are 22, 25, even 30 weeks along." As McCormick writes, "Hern admitted that most of the abortions he performs later than 21 weeks target healthy babies of healthy mothers. Abortions that come after devastating medical diagnoses can be easier for some people to understand, but Hern estimates that at least half and sometimes more of the women who come to the clinic do not have these diagnoses. While the baby can be delivered alive in a matter of hours or minutes, the late term abortion procedure that Hern performs, 'takes three or four days.' So it is not a method necessary for saving the life of the mother when the baby can clearly survive out of the womb."
Now, I mentioned the study that Jen Psaki indicated and the report that there's just a fraction of abortions after the point of viability. Now, remember, she said that no one supports abortion all the way up until the moment of birth. She didn't acknowledge that. Simply doesn't admit that there are people who want to deny and prevent any restriction of abortion all the way up until the moment of birth. But even if you just look at the numbers, she basically says they're inconsequential.
McCormack counters that by writing, "Psaki tries to minimize the horror of late term abortions by calling them incredibly rare. According to the Guttmacher Institute, which favors an expansive right to abortion, there are 930,000 abortions performed annually, and 1.3% of abortions are performed at 21 weeks or later." He just does the math. "That equals about 12,000 late-term abortions a year."
So now we've moved from these don't happen to these happen, only under extenuating horrifying medical circumstances to a late-term abortionist saying, "No, at least in more than half of mine, that isn't the case at all." To saying, "It's just a very small number. It is 1.3%." But that amounts to at least 12,000 babies. 12,000 human beings. That's a small town in America. That's what we're talking about annually, in terms of late term abortions.
The abortions that Jen Psaki said basically don't happen, or if they do happen, they're very rare, and if they do happen, they're justified by some kind of medical crisis except the man who's performing the late term abortion says, "Well, that's not actually right." For half, if not more of the abortions he performs at that stage. It's an amazing admission.
Just as a truth telling and rhetorical device, when someone tells you, nobody supports abortion right up until the moment of birth, well just ask them, "Well then, when do you believe abortions should be restricted or outlawed? Under what conditions do you believe abortion should not be legally available?" The fact that they won't and can't answer the question without betraying their position just indicates the big lie behind Jen Psaki statement, that no one supports abortion right up until the moment of birth. Oh, they most certainly do.
