Editor’s note. My family and I will be on vacation through September 6. I will occasionally add new items but for the most part we will repost “the best of the best” — the stories our readers have told us they especially liked over the last five months. This first ran August 2.
You actually have to listen to the exchange — which you can — between NOW President Terry O’Neill and KIRO radio personality Jason Rantz to get the full flavor of O‘Neill’s amazing responses in a July 29 interview.
Dyer Oxley of Mynorthwest.com was good enough to transcribe most of the back-and-forth. But without hearing O’Neill’s dismissive, condescending tone, it’s like reading the words to a song without hearing the music.
The most obvious non-sequitur (and there were many) was when Rantz asked, hypothetically, would O’Neill support abortion if science determined that life begins at conception? Science has done just that, of course, but Rantz was prudent to ask because so many pro-abortionists insist it’s an open question.
To her credit (sort of) O’Neill responded (according to Oxley)
I don’t care. Of course, I would support abortion. I fell in love with my four-cell stage (child) and that wasn’t even pregnancy. That was before pregnancy began. And I [think] that was potential life … I understand the concept of potential life. I’m in favor of it. What I’m not in favor of is women dying because adequate reproductive healthcare is withheld from them on religious grounds. That is not pro-life.
Pardon? The new human at the 4-cell stage isn’t even a “pregnancy”? It’s “potential life,” a “concept” that O’Neill is “in favor of”?
But in case we draw the wrong conclusion, before pausing to breathe, she tells us women are “dying” because “adequate reproductive healthcare is withheld from them on religious grounds.” That’s a lot of blending of categories, helter-skelter misdirection, and misinformation for one paragraph.
Then there is this exchange
“Clear something up for me, because if I hear your answer correctly, it seems very extreme,” Rantz said. “Take religion out of it, and we have shown through science that life begins the moment that a fetus is created. This is not the potential for life — that is life. You are saying that you do support abortion. Isn’t that the textbook definition of murder in that case?”
“Take religion out of it and we are not even having this conversation,” O’Neill said, noting that religious motivations are what largely contribute to the abortion debate.
What to say?
Like almost all older pro-abortionists, O’Neill is caught in a time warp. Better put, for them, time has stood still.
Not only is the Catholic Church bad, almost the entire motivation to oppose abortion is religious, according to O’Neill. (By the way O’Neill begins with a few snide remarks about the Catholic Church, which quickly turn ugly.) If the inspiration for our Movement initially was largely religious, it now has a co-equal partner. What do I mean?
The logic that opposes the wanton slaughter of defenseless babies has always had many sources, including the principles of classic liberalism. Moreover there are increasing numbers of groups, such as Secular Pro-Life, whose inspiration is just that—secular sources.
These are two of the many reasons younger people are increasingly pro-life.
O’Neill concludes with a heated bashing of the Catholic Bishops (see above) and a blanket assertion that “Republican policies” are “viciously anti-women.”
So any legislation that does anything to give women and girls a chance to take a deep breath before they abort—let alone clean up abortion facilities—is by definition is “viciously anti-women”? Really?
Doubling back to the when does life begin? question, O’Neill and those who gravitate to places like NOW couldn’t care less if it is proven (as it has always has been) that life begins at conception. They could retreat to the tired argument that “life” begins at implantation but why bother?
They want what they want—unfettered abortion—when they want it—now and forever more.
Chelsea Garcia is a political writer with a special interest in international relations and social issues. Events surrounding the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel are a major focus for political journalists. But as a former local reporter, she is also interested in national politics.
Chelsea Garcia studied media, communication and political science in Texas, USA, and learned the journalistic trade during an internship at a daily newspaper. In addition to her political writing, she is pursuing a master's degree in multimedia and writing at Texas.
