During Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, the subject of abortion was brought up in the questionable context of how it had allegedly “been a losing issue” for the GOP ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June of 2022.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked about the six-week abortion ban he signed into law in April and how he had one big “financial backer” who has suggested he move to the middle on the issue to attract moderates.
“What do you say to him and others who say, politically, that is a tough thing to sell nationally?” DeSantis was asked by Fox News anchor and co-debate moderator Bret Baier.
DeSantis’ full answer is below:
Well, I would say we sold the biggest election landslide victory in the history of the Republican Party in the state of Florida in 2022. That’s what I did. We can win.But second of all, look, you got to do what you think is right. I believe in a culture of life. I was proud to sign the Heartbeat Bill. I remember the most impactful moments of my life was when I heard the heartbeat of my oldest daughter in my wife’s womb, and then saw the sonograms of all three of my kids.What the Democrats are trying to do on this issue is wrong, to allow abortion all the way up to the moment of birth. I know a lady in Florida named Penny, she survived multiple abortion attempts. She was left discarded in a pan. Fortunately, her grandmother saved her and brought her to a different hospital.We’re better than what the Democrats are selling. We are not going to allow abortion all the way up till birth, and we will hold them accountable for their extremism.
Watch:
Almost immediately, pro-abortion websites pounced on the brief but powerful story DeSantis told about the 23-week-old abortion survivor, Miriam “Penny” Hopper, because abortion activists don’t want anyone to believe that there is any such thing as an abortion survivor, let alone one who initially was left in a pan by a medical professional.
Jezebel was among the first, running with this headline:
Asked About Abortion, Ron DeSantis Tells Bizarre Story About a Fetus in a Pan
Words they used in their opening paragraph gave readers no doubt as to what they thought about the story (bolded emphasis added by me):
In a particularly desperate moment during Wednesday night’s Republican presidential primary debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) answered a question about abortion by spinning up this little tale …
Later, we were informed that “abortion all the way up to birth isn’t a thing.” And that DeSantis’ telling of the story was “desperate ‘abortion survivor’ bullshit.”
Because left-wing influencers like Jezebel were casting doubt on the story, naturally the MSM and purported fact-checkers rushed to back up the doubters.
We saw this with Politifact, which boiled DeSantis’ comments about the Penny abortion survivor story as a mere “perplexing anecdote” that was “dubious” because it could not be independently verified.
“We were unable to gauge the accuracy of Hopper’s account,” they wrote. However, they later claimed that, “medically speaking, the scenario is dubious.”
The New York Times also did their part to poke holes not only in what DeSantis said but also what Ms. Hopper has claimed about what happened, making sure to point out that the person who originally tried to abort Hopper in 1955 was her own father, not a doctor:
In a 2013 interview with the Florida radio station WFSU, conducted in the middle of a statehouse debate over new abortion restrictions, Ms. Hopper said that her story was based on what she had been told by her family. She said that her father, raised during the Great Depression, did not want another child and that she suspected a botched abortion had sent her mother to the hospital with the complications.
Later, the Times quoted an abortion-performing obstetrician and gynecologist, Diane Horvath, who said the scenario Hopper described about what happened at the clinic, where Hopper says the doctor induced an abortion because a heartbeat was not detected, did not “make sense” to her.
The Times also reported that Dr. Hovarth didn’t view Hopper’s story as “germane” to the current debate around abortion, even if Hopper’s recollection was accurate:
Even if Ms. Hopper’s story is accurate, it’s not particularly germane to a discussion of current abortion practices or regulations, Dr. Horvath said.“It doesn’t represent the reality of medical practice at this moment,” she said. “It’s not really relevant to what we should be talking about when we talk about access to abortion.”
Conveniently, the Times left out the fact that Hovarth is about as woke of an abortionist as they come, blaming all societal ills on white supremacy and “toxic masculinity,” as her Twitter feed makes clear.
And in a predictable move, the DeSantis haters at the Miami Herald actually dug up news clippings from the time to try and piece together Hopper’s family history, claiming the fact that Hopper’s father attempting to abort her with a coathanger because he didn’t think they could afford to feed another child was actually not representative of abortion extremism but instead reflected “the perils of a world where abortion is all but outlawed and women can be forced into dangerous, desperate alternatives.”
“Pro-choice groups say that Hopper’s story presents an even stronger case not to outlaw legal and safe abortions,” they also wrote.
I mean, if you didn’t know better you’d think the piece had been written by Planned Parenthood.
Obviously a family story that dates back several decades is not always going to be told the exact same way every time. But, IMO, the point behind DeSantis bringing national attention to Hopper’s story is that there are indeed abortion babies who are born alive and who do in fact survive, but that Democrats oppose any laws that would mandate doctors perform life-saving medical procedures on those babies.
To read more on Penny Hopper’s story, click here and watch below:
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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