On his Fox News show Wednesday night, Tucker Carlson invited on pro-choice advocate Monica Klein to discuss the much-critiqued comments by “moderate” Virgnia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, who defended a bill allowing abortion up until a baby’s birth. But the conversation between Carlson and Klein instantly went south, with both saying they think “less” of each other after the exchange.
On Wednesday, Gov. Northam defended the idea of killing a baby in the third-trimester, which a Democrat-proposed Virgnia bill would have allowed. “When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of the mother, with the consent of physicians, more than one physician by the way, and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus which is non-viable,” Gov. Northam said in an interview with WTOP’s “Ask The Governor.” “So in this particular example, if the mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen, the infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if this is what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physician and the mother.”
The comments caused a national stir, so Carlson invited on Klein, a pro-choice advocate and founding partner of Seneca Strategies, to discuss the issue. It didn’t go in the productive direction Carlson clearly hoped.
“I wonder what you think of what Dr. Northam, the governor of Virginia, just said: That when a child — he described the child as an infant — is born, there’s a point where the mother and the physician can decide whether to kill the infant or not,” Carlson said (video below). “What do you think of that?”
Klein responded by immediately accusing Carlson of wanting “to go back to a time where Roe v. Wade was illegal, where women were having back-alley abortions and they were using coat hangers to have abortions, which is actually what’s barbaric.”
“Don’t give me that,” said Carlson, disappointed. “I’m giving you time to make a real argument. I’m not arguing for the repeal of Roe v. Wade — and please don’t be tiresome. The governor of Virginia, who is a rising star of Democratic Party, just said this. There’s pending legislation that mirrors it, and I’m asking you what you think of it. That’s it.”
“I think that right now, reproductive healthcare is under attack by the Republican Party,” Klein charged. “Seventy-two percent of Americans support right to choose.”
She then got specific about who is supposedly waging this war on “reproductive healthcare”: “We have Trump and sexual predator Kavanaugh trying to repeal Roe v. Wade and trying to take away control over our bodies,” she said, repeating unfounded accusations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — accusations the Senate Judiciary Committee did not find “any evidence to substantiate or corroborate” after an extensive investigation.
“This isn’t about babies,” Klein alleged. “This is about you attempting to control women’s bodies.”
“Please don’t be a robot, Monica,” said Carlson. “You’re smarter than that.”
When he asked if it “bothers” her to simply ask her a reasonable question about the extreme bill, she again attacked him with the clichéd Democrat talking point that ignores the existence of another life in the woman: “It bothers me that you are trying to control women’s bodies,” she said.
“I wonder if you think you’re convincing anybody, or if your unwillingness to address what just happened today on tape, that we just played, is a sign that you can’t defend this,” said Carlson. After giving her another chance, she again turned the discussion to “trying to repeal Roe v. Wade.”
“This is about a woman’s right to choose, and you as a man should not have a single say in that,” she said.
“Wow. Do you think that you’re making a case that most people agree with — that it’s okay to abort a child in the third trimester?” said Carlson. Carlson eventually told her, “I think less of you” for her response, a sentiment she reciprocated.
The failed bill Northam was defending would have allowed women to abort their babies through the end of the third trimester, in other words, until birth, if it was deemed by a single doctor that it could harm the woman’s health, including “mental health.”
Video below via Fox News: