Fox News Contributor Talks About Abortion And Slavery: ‘A Fundamental Human Rights Issue’

On Wednesday, author and commentator Rachel Campos-Duffy compared abortion to slavery while appearing on Fox News’ “The Story,” with guest-host Ed Henry.

Henry first played a clip in which Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said the following regarding Americans not wanting their tax dollars going to fund abortion: “You know, we have a tenet in our Constitution, it’s called separation of church and state, and I do not believe that that is a valid argument.”

Campos-Duffy responded:

Again, you’re seeing how the Left is moving further and further into a radical position because they feel up against the wall, because technology and science is on the side of pro-lifers. A lot of what they’re trying to do is say that Donald Trump and Republicans right now in office are dividing our country on abortion.

Our country has been divided since [1973] when Roe vs. Wade was passed, and I believe that in my lifetime, the only way this is going to be resolved is Roe v. Wade [being] overturned. It’s going to go back to the states because this issue is as fundamental as an issue was back in the middle of the 1800s called slavery. This is an issue about who gets to decide who is human enough so they can do whatever they want with that person, or the person they’re saying is not a person. This is such a fundamental human rights issue. The pro-choicers know they’re losing; the momentum is on the side of the pro-lifers; the science is, too; and the only way this is going to be resolved is by overturning Roe v. Wade.

Author and Fox News host Juan Williams, who was the only other guest on the panel, shot back at Campos-Duffy’s claims:

Well, I think, you know, so go back to the slavery analogy that Rachel just used, I would think it’s about having people being able to speak for themselves, and so if someone had asked slaves, “Hey, do you want to be enslaved?” they would have said, “No.” If you were asking a woman, a mother – in most cases, you have women who have abortions have children; they’re making a decision … one out of every four American women, and oftentimes it’s a function of family planning, family circumstance, rare in terms of the last trimester. What we’re talking about here is protecting rights; and if slaves had rights, believe me, they wouldn’t have been slaves.

Campos-Duffy, however, didn’t back down:

Well, just as in those times people liked to talk about property rights and states rights, this is a human rights issue, and the victim, just as the victim was the slave, the victim is the unborn child in this case as well … and by the way, there were also people in those times who were against slavery, who said, “I’m personally against slavery, but I’m not going to tell other people what to do.” We’ve heard that argument in the case of abortion as well. I think that the humanity of the fetus is being proven every day by science and technology, and people on your side of the issue look a lot like science deniers.

The Daily Wire reached out to Campos-Duffy for further comment, but as of publication, we have not received a reply.

The abortion/slavery analogy is used with relative frequency by those in the pro-life movement. In 2017, conservative columnist and founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) Star Parker spoke before the United States House of Representatives in favor of the “Heartbeat Protection Act.”

During her remarks, she directly compared abortion to slavery:

I implore you to please consider my above testimony on behalf of the innocent life growing in the womb, and the vulnerable men and women considering an abortion. But if you will also consider in your deliberations regarding H.R.490 the last time in American history that we were faced with hard constitutional political questions on the civil conflict between humanity and convenience, personhood and property, justice and public opinion.

Slavery was, as abortion is, a crime against humanity. Like slavery, tensions were created in a public square and in law concerning who qualified for natural rights worthy of protection. In the first 89 years of our nation’s existence, it was the black slave who sought freedom and equal protection under the law, and many attempts were made to heed their cry.

In 1777, gradual abolitionist laws were passed in northern states – Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York. In 1807, Congress passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States after January 1, 1808. In 1831, emancipation was narrowly defeated in the Virginia Congressional Convention.

Today, it is the conceived person living in the womb of its mother that should be considered human with opportunity of equal protection under the law. It is ironic that while the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution in 1868 humanized slaves, the United States Supreme Court of 1973 dehumanized the life of the being in utero, handing down a decision … to once again allow a powerful few to determine exactly who had a right to humanity.

As with slavery, while special interests groups put tremendous pressure on legislators and judges to dehumanize blacks so that they could protect slavery, today, similar pressure is put on legislators and judges by the eugenicists movement and other special interest groups regarding abortion. If the baby in utero is not a human being in the fullest sense of that term, than he or she has no natural right to life. However, if the opposite is true, then humanity in the womb is entitled to the constitutional right to life. Ignoring the advent of ultrasound and other medical devices that make it abundantly clear that the baby in utero is alive and indeed human is a disservice to women, and to a society built on the constitutional rights that protect us all.

In response to this story, Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, an anti-abortion organization, told The Daily Wire: “Rachel Campos-Duffy is absolutely right. Just because something is legal does not make it moral. The Supreme Court once said slavery and segregation were legal, but we now look back on that with shame. Neither ruling was right or moral. Blacks were considered unequal to whites under the law, and it took years of activism and work to undo this injustice. In the same way, the pro-life movement works to expose the injustice of abortion and the humanity of the preborn child, who also deserve equal protection under the law.”