The Democrat running in the special election for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District supports abortion basically right up to the moment of birth. Less than 48 hours before polls open, Hiral Tipirneni admitted as much on national television.
During a Sunday night interview with Kasie Hunt on MSNBC, Tipirneni was pushed to clarify her position on abortion. Asked specifically about partial-birth abortion, she was remarkably, even brutally, honest.
Would she support a partial-birth-abortion ban? “I truly do believe that that is a decision that should be between a woman, her partner, her physician, and her faith,” she said.
Is there any point during pregnancy when abortion should be limited? What about limits on late-term abortions when, for example, the child can survive outside the womb? “I don’t think that that is something we should be legislating. We need to let medical professionals make that decision,” she said.
Never mind that considerable medical research shows that the majority of partial-birth abortions are performed on healthy mothers to end otherwise healthy pregnancies.
Never mind that the United States, along with China, North Korea, and Vietnam, is one of only seven nations that still stomach late-term abortions.
Never mind that 80 percent of voters, even those who identify as pro-choice, support some sort of restrictions on abortion.
Tipirneni, by her own admission, instead supports abortion at any moment, for any reason, and without any oversight whatsoever. Barbaric and extreme, she is also in the Democratic mainstream.
While other candidates lack her candor, they have adopted her position.
During the general election, Hillary Clinton defended the practice on the debate stage, telling Chris Wallace that “so long as the life and the health of the mother are taken into account,” a truly arbitrary and almost meaningless standard, a woman ought to be able to end the life of her child up until the last hour before birth. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., made a similar case in the Bible belt. And even self-styled conservative Catholic Democrat like Rep. Conor Lamb promised to vote against a 20-week abortion ban.
This Democratic abortion orthodoxy is so pervasive and so authoritative that a candidate running in a R+25 Arizona district doesn’t bother avoiding it. Tipirneni, like the rest of her party, has embraced the idea of abortion on demand even at the risk her own political future. It’s her and her party’s identity.
