Left-wing feminist activist Gloria Steinem compared supporters of the pro-life movement in America to Nazi Germans on the grounds that Adolf Hitler was against abortion for certain ethnic groups.
Appearing on NBC’s Today show on Tuesday to promote the third edition of her book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Steinem referred to Hitler’s position on abortion in the context of recent debates over what constitutes life.
“The new generation of reader is instructing me by saying that these essays are still relevant,” she explained. “On a more serious note, to put it mildly, is why Hitler was actually elected, and he was elected and he campaigned against abortion. I mean, that was — he padlocked the family planning clinics. Okay, so that is still relevant in the terms of the right wing.”
The remarks were immediately seized upon by anti-abortion campaigners, with conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza pointing out how they were historically inaccurate.
“Hitler was vehemently anti-abortion for Nordic Germans, and vehemently pro-abortion for the so-called inferior races. This can hardly be called a pro-life position!” he wrote on Twitter.
Steinem’s comments came amid the fierce debate over the limits of abortion should be in the United States after Senate Democrats voted against a bill designed to provide newborn babies who survived botched abortions with the medical care to ensure their survival.
Last November, the 84-year-old activist was featured in a Netflix documentary on the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, where she described a woman’s right to an abortion as the “basis of democracy.”
According to a Marist poll released earlier this week, the recent controversy over extremist abortion procedures led to a “sudden and dramatic shift” toward the pro-life position, with 47 percent of Americans now identifying themselves as “pro-life.”
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