Carly Fiorina put on a clinic on CNN yesterday, parlaying an abortion question designed to put conservatives on defense -- and offering her an opportunity to score points against a fellow Republican -- into an aggressive attack on Hillary Clinton's abortion extremism. Flip the premise. Masterfully executed, and especially powerful coming from a woman (via the Free Beacon):
Let’s talk about the legislation that’s sitting on the senate floor right now, which does allow for [exceptions for rape and incest]. Let’s also talk about Hillary Clinton’s position. Let’s talk about what extreme is. “It’s not a life until it leaves the hospital.” That’s Hillary Clinton’s position. It’s Hillary Clinton’s position that a thirteen year old girl needs her mother’s permission to go to a tanning salon or get a tattoo, but not to get an abortion. It’s Hillary Clinton’s position that women should not be permitted to look at an ultrasound before an abortion, and yet people are trying to harvest body parts can use an ultasound to make sure those body parts are preserved so they can be sold. That, Jake, is extreme.
The media loves to echo Democrats' incessant smears against pro-life legislation and sentiment as "extreme," a silencing and marginalization tactic we tackle in our book, End of Discussion. The Democrat/media alliance ignores inconvenient polling on the issue of abortion, which shows that large majorities of Americans support significant additional restrictions on the practice -- including young voters and women. Meanwhile, Democrats cry "extreme," while their stance is radically out of step with domestic public opinion and international norms. The Democratic Party supports elective late-term abortion on-demand, paid for by taxpayers. As Fiorina notes, Hillary opposes wildly popular, common-sense reforms, and supports the position that life doesn't begin until a baby leaves the hospital. Fiorina has proven adept at deftly parrying accusatory questions from abortion supporters. Here she was on The View in June, educating the ladies on true feminism and abortion (skip ahead to the 3:00 mark):
Whoopi and company obviously have no idea that theirs is a small minority view on late term abortion, a verifiable fact Carly coolly explains to them. Carly Fiorina may not be many people's first choice within the Republican presidential field at the moment, but she's an impressive person, a talented communicator, and a relentless, fierce, female critic of Hillary Clinton. Her presence on a GOP debate stage would be a welcome and productive development.