Chris Cuomo’s Ugly Abortion Rant

W ith the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a challenge to Roe V. Wade next session, CNN Cuomo Prime Time host Chris Cuomo took to the air to smear “hard-right” pro-lifers who “get up in their religion and righteousness” as misogynistic racists. His rant offered some of the most vacuous and absurd contentions popular among abortion advocates.

Cuomo began by lamenting the fact that no one has empowered a “special commission” of scientists and experts to study the abortion issue because we lack “intellectual curiosity.” Cuomo, it seems, is unaware that there are thousands of studies already in existence on this topic. Of course, in its media conception, “science” is mostly a word used to chill debate or demean opponents as slack-jawed yokels. Unlike Cuomo, though, I don’t need a commission of partisans to tell that a fetus with a heartbeat is a human being who deserves protection from the scalpel or suction machine.

Yet, rather than affirmatively state his case, Cuomo accuses pro-lifers of having ulterior motivations. The conceit is that abortion is an apolitical and unassailable norm, and conservatives are the ones pulling a “lever” in the “culture war” to distract from more important “policy.”

Well, Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, a 2018 law prohibiting doctors from performing abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy (except in a medical emergency or in the case of severe fetal abnormality), is policy. It was passed into law. It is the Jackson Women’s Health Organization that brought the issue to court, as is its right. And if the Supreme Court was good enough to unilaterally impose abortion on the nation via Roe v Wade in 1973 — circumventing the legislative branch and states — surely it has the power to adjudicate cases related to that decision. Even if Cuomo now dismisses the court as “Mitch McConnell’s Supreme Court mission” — by which he is referring to the Republicans’ devious plan to seat judges using the constitutionally prescribed method in place since the founding of the nation.

Of course, Cuomo is merely projecting complaints about the partisan nature of the debate:

But again, it’s not about science or consensus. It’s about dividing lines, legislating to the far-right white-fright vote. Flooding the zone with 536 bills that abridge a woman’s right to control her own body in 46 states. It’s just like voting rights in one way. You see? It seems like the far right only cares about protecting humans before they are born.

The “white-fright vote?” Accusations of racism have become eye-rollingly perfunctory these days, but it must be noted that the intellectual founders of the abortion movement were often rank racists. And it is the modern identitarian — the real one, not those he smears — who supports abortion for racial reasons. It is the abortion industry, whether it is merely an unintended outcome or a business model, that performs a disproportionate number of abortions on minority women. In Cuomo’s hometown, there are years in which there are more abortions among African-American women than live births. This is a tragedy for black Americans, not the white supremacists.

Cuomo can also grouse about the “far right” and “consensus” all he likes, but an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll in 2019 found that 61 percent of Americans wanted to restrict abortion to just the first three months of a pregnancy. According to Gallup, only 28 percent of Americans support abortions in the second trimester and 13 percent in the final three months. That’s why this debate exists. Now, polls don’t decide the future of legislation or judicial decisions, but abortion maximalists such as Cuomo have no business calling anyone radical on the issue.

But, we should thank Cuomo for conceding that the abortion debate is about “humans.” He can forever repeat trite talking points, but it is especially important to protect humans “before they are born,” as they are powerless to protect themselves. On this question, “science” is not enough:

Though, medical capabilities may be moving the point of viability well short of where it was assumed to be in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. So, you’d think some of the proponents of harsher measures would want the science involved.

Cuomo confuses the usefulness of “science” as a tool for technological advancement and the usefulness of “science” as a tool for determining the worth of human life. Were people who died in the 17th century of infections not humans simply because society didn’t have the technology to save them? Lyla Stensrud, born at 21 weeks in 2014, is likely the most premature surviving infant in the United States. She was obviously a life at 21 weeks. And when science saves that 20-week-old baby, we will have confirmation that that, too, is a life. Somewhere around 10,000 to 15,000 viable or near-viable babies are aborted every year — they are a life, even if we have to wait a few years to make them “viable” in the eyes of the law. Cuomo’s definition of life is not rational or scientific.

Then again, as far as I can tell, he doesn’t believe in any protections for unviable or viable babies — nothing from conception to crowning. Perhaps it’s he who should embrace more moral curiosity. Without it, “science” — and even science — can easily degenerate into a defense of eugenics and carnage.