President of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund Jeanne Mancini joined Breitbart News Daily host and executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon Thursday to discuss GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments about abortion during an MSNBC interview Wednesday, and the FDA’s authorization of the expansion of the use of the abortion drug known as RU-486.
After stating he would say women who have abortions should be punished in the hypothetical situation in which abortion was made illegal in the country, Trump then walked back his statement to say that women are victims in these situations and that the abortionist would be held legally responsible.
Mancini said women who are post-abortive often suffer tremendously with grief.
“The last thing she needs to hear about is punishment,” she explained. “What she really needs is an invitation to hope and healing.”
“If the Republican frontrunner is going to address issues about life, he’s got to know what he’s talking about,” Mancini continued. “[Donald Trump] would do well to spend more time with social conservatives to hear more about what’s going on.”
She added:
Regardless of where you stand on the political aisle, if anyone is going to make a statement that women who have chosen an abortion should be punished, our whole movement does need to shriek and to stand up and speak the truth because…when a woman makes that choice, she’s often making it out of desperation…though she has freedom of will.
The pro-life leader said that “being pro-life is being pro-woman,” and “wanting what’s best for mom and the baby.” Punishment, she said, is not what’s best for either.
Asked by Bannon whether Trump is trying to move in the direction of the core values of the social conservative base of the Republican Party and has just not taken the time to learn what the issues are about, Mancini responded:
I can’t judge his heart…but, please, learn about this before you talk about it. Spend more time with people who spend a lot of time studying this issue and who live and breathe and think about it every day – and put the right people around you so that you can get some help on speaking about these issues and show some reserve on these issues when maybe you haven’t done the research.
Mancini also said she wholeheartedly disagreed with those who may be engaged in the populist-nationalist movement and who may view social conservatives and their views as relatively insignificant and tedious.
“Those of us who are promoting the inherent dignity of the human person in all pro-life public policy know that that is one of the most important issues, and I don’t think we’re such a small, little class that it doesn’t really matter,” she asserted. “I think having a good understanding of the human person and how public policies impact the person and the family is absolutely critical.”
Bannon observed that much of the energy of the conservative movement is coming from pro-life young people.
“Anyone who has ever come to the March for Life…will see tens of thousands of people and 85-90% of the marchers are age 25 and under,” she said. “They’re the best ambassadors for this issue and know that human rights start with respecting the dignity of the human person in the womb. And they see abortion as the human rights issue of today.”
Pivoting to the issue of the FDA’s expansion of the use of abortion drug RU-486 to even later in pregnancies, Mancini said medication abortion is often harder – both physically and psychologically – on women than surgical abortion. By ingesting the drugs that will ultimately kill their babies, she said women are serving as their own abortionists and are also frequently not supervised by physicians in person when they administer the drugs to themselves.
“It is shocking to me that pro-abortion advocates are basically willing to lower the bar on women’s health so that access to abortion can become more [available],” she said regarding abortion advocates’ objection to recent abortion safety laws passed in some states. “We’re lowering the bar on standards for abortion clinics so that more can be open.”
Mancini noted that prior to the murder conviction in 2013 of abortionist Kermit Gosnell – whose clinic was known as the “house of horrors” – abortion clinics were “regulated in a way that was less than veterinary clinics, less than public pools, and less than beauty parlors.”