Posted on 03/20/2017 2:32:49 PM PDT by TBP
Tomi Lahren and I work for the same company. I’ve been on her show a few times and I always enjoyed the conversation. I don’t really know her because I work from home up in Maryland and she’s down at headquarters in Dallas, but she seems like a nice person and I have no qualms with her personally at all.
I can’t and won’t speculate as to why she went on The View this past Friday, suddenly reversed course on abortion, declared herself to be “pro-choice,” and basked in the patronizing applause from the liberal audience and the radical feminists at the table. All I know is that just a few months ago she was describing abortion as the “murder” of “babies,” but when given the spotlight on a mainstream network, she eagerly rattled off a series of inane, half-baked Planned Parenthood talking points, while Joy Behar nodded approvingly. Here’s what she said exactly:
“I’m pro-choice and here is why. I am a constitutional, you know, someone that loves the Constitution. I am someone that is for limited government, so I can’t sit here and be a hypocrite and say I’m for limited government but I think the government should decide what women do with their bodies. Stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well… And you know, I get a lot of attacks from conservative women as well. Equal hate from all sides for me.”
Tomi, who has repeatedly blasted liberals for believing that the unborn have no rights, has now decided that actually the unborn really don’t have any rights, and anyone who believes otherwise (anyone who believes as she professed to believe about 14 seconds ago) is a hypocrite and a hater. Again, I can’t explain this dramatic and troubling change of heart. As is always the case with these kinds of mysterious flip-flops, two theories emerge:
The cynical theory is that Tomi says whatever will earn applause in front of whatever audience she happens to be addressing in the moment. She was “pro-life” in her Facebook videos and Twitter posts because it was sure to garner retweets and shares, and she was “pro-choice” on The View because it was sure to please the crowd in attendance and attract favorable coverage from outlets like Cosmopolitan.
The slightly less cynical interpretation is that Tomi really changed her mind for some reason, and decided to have her pro-abortion coming out party on The View, of all places. But even if she did change her mind, the fact that she threw pro-lifers under the bus is extremely disappointing. And the fact that she followed up this betrayal by playing the victim on Twitter, again mocking pro-lifers as “the conservative police,” and explaining that she’s a “moderate conservative,” as if we were all supposed to have known that based on her videos where she constantly criticizes moderate conservatives for being moderate, is equally as disappointing.
It’s also profoundly damaging and counter productive for a self-appointed spokeswoman of conservatism to publicly turn against the most fundamental tenet of conservatism, and in the process denigrate the conservatives who still believe in that tenet. If she’s had a sincere pro-abortion conversion experience, she has a responsibility to the audience that made her famous to explain it to them directly and respectfully, not to announce it to the hens on The View while insulting the audience that put her there. On the other hand, if the conversion was not sincere, or if she was pro-abortion all along and only regurgitated pro-life slogans to manipulate her conservative audience, then that scene on The View was something considerably worse than merely disappointing.
I can’t guess as to which of these explanations applies, and I won’t try, but a lot of people will guess and they can’t be blamed for guessing. When you reverse course so drastically, refuse to offer an explanation, and then act with contempt towards the people who are asking for one, you invite them to come up with their own. That’s just the way these things go. Rather than participate in the conjecture, I reached out to Tomi personally and offered to come on her show to have a dialogue. I think it’s fair to say that I’m the most vocal pro-lifer here at TheBlaze, and Tomi, as far as I know, is the only pro-choicer, so it seems that a debate between the two of us could be constructive.
Now, all of that aside, what matters most about Tomi’s pro-abortion comments is that they’re just plain wrong. It’s the wrongness I want to focus on, primarily. I will launch no personal attacks against her. I would much rather discuss the wrongness of her ideas, and there’s quite a lot of wrongness to sort through:
She’s wrong, first of all, because there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution granting a woman the right to murder her child. There are, however, several amendments which affirm the right of all humans to be treated as human.
She’s wrong, second, because this has nothing to do with what a woman does with her body. This has to do with what a woman does with the body of her child. While the body of a child may be dependent on the body of its mother, that doesn’t make the child’s body the same as the mother’s body. In a similar way, a newborn baby may be dependent on his mother’s breast for sustenance, but that doesn’t mean he is his mother’s breast. I think science backs me up on this.
She’s wrong, third, because rights do not negate responsibilities. Indeed, rights and responsibilities are dimensions of each other. Every right has a corresponding responsibility. For instance, you have the right to bear arms, but you lose that right if you use your gun to murder another person. With the right to bear arms comes the responsibility to do so in a way that will not result in the death of an innocent human. Likewise, a woman has the right to mostly “do what she wants with her body,” but not if “doing what she wants” means killing a baby. I basically have the right to drive where I want, but I don’t have the right to drive into my neighbor’s living room. I usually have the right to walk where I want, but I don’t have the right to walk on my neighbor’s head. I often have the right to say what I want, but I don’t have the right to call the police and falsely accuse my neighbor of cooking meth in his basement. In all of these cases, there is a built in understanding that I can “do what I want,” so long as “what I want” doesn’t include causing direct and intentional harm to an innocent party.
Speaking of responsibility, as I explain in my forthcoming book, parents have a special responsibility to their children. When you have kids, the list of things you can do dwindles while the list of things you must do expands significantly. This is what it means to be an adult. I am legally required to care for my children, even if caring for them represents an enormous strain on my body, bank account, nerves, time, energy, etc. If we cannot or will not fulfill this responsibility, we’re legally obliged to make other arrangements for the child. What we can’t do, after they’re born, is violently exterminate them because we suddenly decided that we’d prefer to be “autonomous” again. If the law prohibits such an atrocity after birth, it ought to prohibit it before. And if such a law after birth is not an infringement on the rights of the parents, then it cannot logically be considered an infringement before.
She’s wrong, fourth, because the real “hypocrites” are the so-called “conservatives” who believe that a child’s right to life is subordinate to a woman’s right to convenience. In fact, these “conservatives” are hypocrites in about 15 different ways. Allow me to list them:
1. They’re hypocrites because they claim to be patriots while rejecting the very right — the right to life — that forms the philosophical foundation of our country. The Declaration of Independence states that the right to life is “self-evident” and “endowed by the creator.” To deny this is to deny the very doctrine that lies at the root of our nation.
2 – 11. They’re hypocrites because they claim to believe passionately in all ten articles in the Bill of Rights, yet, again, they deny the right which must logically proceed them (each item in the Bill of Rights is its own hypocrisy, so this counts as ten individual hypocrisies). The only reason you have a right to free speech or religion or self-defense is that, by your nature as a human being, you possess an inherit worth and dignity which entitles you to them. But if you do not have enough worth and dignity to entitle you to the life God gave you, then you certainly don’t have enough worth and dignity to entitle you to money or property or guns or anything.
12. They’re hypocrites because they hinge their pro-abortion views on the notion of “limited government” while still insisting on a government large enough to police immigration and kill terrorists and do any number of other things, including enforcing laws against other types of murder (especially the murder of themselves, presumably). But if they really think the government should be so incredibly, radically small that it cannot or will not protect its most vulnerable citizens from being systematically slaughtered in tax-funded butcher shops, why and how could it be large enough to have any business, or interest, in dealing with matters like immigration and terrorism? And, again, on what basis and for what reason does it protect us from terrorism and illegal immigration if we’ve already established that our lives are inherently worthless anyway?
13. They’re hypocrites because, most of the time, they profess to believe in God while simultaneously claiming that the children God “knits together in the womb” (Psalm 139) ought to have no legal right to continue existing.
14. They’re hypocrites because they pretend to be warriors against the Left even as they agree with the Left on its number one issue, thus surrendering every issue to them. After all, if the Left is right about abortion, as Tomi suggests, then it’s right that the value of human life is relative to the feelings of the mother, which means it’s right about truth being relative (Tomi defended herself over the weekend by calling her pro-abortion viewpoint “my truth”), which means it’s right about the idea that our emotions and desires are what rule the universe and determine reality itself, which means it’s right about everything and nothing matters anymore. You can’t very well grant all these things to the Left and then pretend that you’re still fighting the good fight when you argue with them about some side issue you’ve just rendered irrelevant anyway. “Sure, it’s OK to kill babies because everything is relative and nothing fundamentally matters, but I refuse to compromise on my tax policy position!” Something just seems to be lacking with that approach.
15. They’re hypocrites because they claim to be against “political correctness” while taking the most politically correct position possible on the issue where the Left most demands it.
They’re hypocrites for about 600 other reasons, but let’s just leave it at 15 for now. And here I am just speaking generally. I could add another 600 hypocrisies for well known conservative commentators who profit off of their conservative credentials only to lock arms with the Left on the most crucial issue of our day, though I think my point has been made.
I wish Tomi the best, with all sincerity, and I hope she takes some time to reflect on all of this and figure out what she actually believes about this issue and every other. But in the mean time, when she or anyone else uses the mantle of conservatism to promote the murder of children, I will rigorously oppose them. I make no exceptions to this rule.
Would Beck putting his headquarters in Salt Lake City have been too obvious?
Don’t comment on the substance of the article if you can post some snark.
Don’t comment on the substance of the article if you can post some snark.
It is Free Republic.
It’s a tradition and one that I support.
The problem is, abortion isn’t about what a woman can or can’t do with her own body.
It’s about what’s being done to someone else’s body. Like the baby’s.
I need to see the original interview.
Did Tomi actually use the term hypocrites during her interview, or was that the author?
They should replace her with Madison Gesiotto. But maybe she is too good for Glenn Beck!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Gesiotto
She looks like she’d be an excellent choice!
Funny you mention her — according to her Wikipedia page, today is her birthday. (She’s 25.)
She is an up and coming conservative star!! Happy Birthday Madison!!!
If you believe a person has the “right” to an abortion then you essentially believe MIGHT MAKES RIGHT. This is not a good position for anyone to hold, but especially for women.
Essentially anyone can be killed or subordinated to others under MIGHT MAKES RIGHT. No one is strong enough alone to resist a powerful person or group of persons who want to take his/her life or enslave them without exercising lethal force themselves if they can
... so basically you would have a whole society based on the threat of lethal force. Everyone against everyone. This is the biggest hypocrisy of the Left who claim not to want to live in such a violent society.
Social consent to violence in the womb translates to the entire society being underpinned by violence and threat of violence. No peace in the womb = no peace anywhere.
It says she’s in law school, but Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and (though we hate to admit it) Megyn Kelly are all lawyers, so there would be precedent for a media career.
I have to believe that she is heading in that direction. She has been on numerous venues discussing conservative talking points. I would watch her in a heartbeat.
Maybe Tomi Lahren has had an abortion
And she is greatly conflicted, or to justify it in her own mind.
Ann Coulter and Laura Igraham also used to be conservative.
That wouldn’t shock me.
Glenn Beck addresses Tomi Lahren’s status at The Blaze:
I believe she did...She seems to be pro abortion and if you see some of her reports she never covers pro life issues(that I can tell) I can’t respect someone like that..
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.