Georgia Democrat gubernatorial hopeful Stacey Abrams said Tuesday access to abortion is necessary because “having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas … how much food costs.”
“You can’t divorce being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy from the economic realities of having a child,” she told MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Grabien’s Tom Elliott posted the Morning Joe clip to Twitter:
.@staceyabrams says abortion can help address inflation issues: "Having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas, it’s why you’re concerned about how much food costs. For women, this is not a reductive issue." pic.twitter.com/BNHJWqKRpa
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 19, 2022
The question posed to Abrams was as follows:
You’re running for governor of Georgia. I would assume, maybe incorrectly, that while abortion is an issue, it nowhere reaches the level of interest of voters in terms of the cost of gas, for bread, milk, things like that. What can a governor, what could you do as governor, to alleviate the concerns of Georgia voters about those livability, daily hourly issues that they’re confronted with?
Abrams responded:
But let’s be clear, having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas. It’s why you’re concerned about how much food costs. For women, this is not a reductive issue. You can’t divorce being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy from the economic realities of having a child.
“And, so, these are – it’s important for us to have both and conversations,” the Democrat continued. “We don’t have the luxury of reducing it or separating them out. But we also have to talk about what a governor can do: a governor can address housing prices. A governor can address the cost of education, a governor can put money into the pockets of everyday hardworking Georgians instead of giving tax cuts to the wealthy.”
“That’s what I talk about on the trail,” Abrams said. “And that’s what’s resonating. But let’s not pretend that women – half the population, especially those of childbearing age – they understand that having a child is absolutely an economic issue. It is only politicians who see it as simply another cultural conversation. It is a real biological and economic imperative conversation that women need to have.”
In September, Abrams appeared on ABC’s The View, where she defended abortion through all nine months of pregnancy using an already-debunked claim by the abortion industry and its allies that women only seek late-term abortions due to some “traumatic experience.”
"The majority of these procedures [late-term abortions] are performed… on healthy women and healthy fetuses." – Ron Fitzsimmons, Director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers https://t.co/S8IiG32gr9
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) February 6, 2019
In 2013, in fact, the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute released a study that found women seeking both first-trimester and late-term abortions provided the same reasons for delaying the procedure, including “not knowing about the pregnancy,” “trouble deciding about the abortion,” and “disagreeing about the abortion with the man involved.”
The study’s researchers concluded, against the claim, that “most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.”
Abrams’ comments on Morning Joe drew numerous responses from Twitter users:
How evil.
— LibertyGirlVa (@LibertyGirlVa) October 19, 2022
Stacey has that look of desperation. Imagine listening to this and thinking “yes, of I can legally have an abortion, then all my other economic worries disappear”
— Dankins (@dank6975) October 19, 2022
I'm childless AND worried about the price of gas/food.
Checkmate, Stacey.
— Dave BC (@Dave__BC) October 19, 2022
If there are no children, think about how much money can be saved just on the cost of facemasks… pic.twitter.com/lxRnf2qkQj
— John Nero (@realjohnnynero) October 19, 2022
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Stacey Abrams” by Stacey Abrams.
