Fiorina: When will media confront Hillary Clinton's abortion extremism?

WASHINGTON (Christian Examiner) -- Pro-lifers are accustomed to getting pummeled by the mainstream media, so when a pro-life politician stands up for the cause and essentially wins, it gets noticed.

That's exactly what happened Tuesday on CNN, when Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina turned a question from host Jake Tapper about pro-life "extremism" into a monologue on what she called Hillary Clinton's pro-choice extremism.

Fiorina then blasted the media's double standard on the issue and challenged it to ask Clinton details about her position.

The popular website TheRightScoop.com was so impressed with Fiorina's response that it posted the video under the headline, "HEY REPUBLICANS: Carly Fiorina just showed you how to answer questions about abortion."

Tapper was asking Fiorina about a new Wisconsin law signed by Gov. Scott Walker that prohibits abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

"On Twitter," Tapper said, "Hillary Clinton said Gov. Walker signed dangerous abortion restrictions into law in Wisconsin without exceptions for rape or incest. She called this extreme and unacceptable. Walker re-tweeted her and called her out of touch with most Americans. What's your position on this legislation, which does not allow for exceptions for rape and incest?"

Fiorina began, "Let's talk about the legislation that's sitting on the Senate floor right now, which does allow for those exceptions."

As Tapper tried to ask a follow-up question, Fiorina didn't stop: "Let's also talk about Hillary Clinton's position. Let's talk about what extreme is: It's not a life until it leaves the hospital. That's Hillary Clinton's position. It's Hillary Clinton's position that a 13-year-old girl needs her mother's permission to go to a tanning salon or get a tattoo but not to get an abortion. It's Hillary Clinton's position that women should not be permitted to look at an ultrasound before an abortion, and yet people who are trying to harvest body parts can use ultrasound to make sure that those body parts are preserved so they can be sold. That, Jake, is extreme."

Tapper then asked, "Just to clarify, do you believe there should be an exception for rape and incest?"

Fiorina responded, "I would be delighted if, for once, the media would ask Hillary Clinton about the extremism of her position: It's not a life until it leaves the hospital. My position is clear. It's been clear and consistent ever since I ran for the Senate [in California] in 2010. Anyone can look it up. Yes, I support exceptions. But the majority of the American people now believe that abortion for any reason at all, to be paid for by taxpayers, after five months, is an abomination."

Fiorina – the former CEO of Hewlett Packard -- then referenced the undercover video sting by the Center for Medical Progress which showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing exchanging unborn baby body parts for money.

"This videotape, whether you are a pro-choice woman or a pro-life woman, this videotape is depraved," she said. "The casual nature with which these people are talking about fetuses and tissue and specimens, I tell you what: If a [pregnant] woman was looking at that ultrasound at that same stage in her pregnancy, the [OBGYN] doctor would not be talking about fetuses or specimens or tissues. They would be saying, 'Look at your baby's heartbeat. Look at your baby's eyes. Look at your baby's organs.'"

Meanwhile, FoxNews' Brit Hume is receiving applause from the pro-life community for his own commentary on abortion, which took place Monday. Justin Taylor, senior vice president and publisher for books at Crossway and a blogger, called it the "best 1.5 minute commentary on abortion ever heard on network news."

"Whatever comes of the revelations about Planned Parenthood and its participation in the traffic in fetal body parts, those revelations will have achieved one thing: They have parted the veil of antiseptic tidiness behind which the abortion industry has for so long operated," Hume said. "The sight of a senior Planned Parenthood official, and a doctor to boot, discussing the market for fetal body parts in between bites of salad and sips of wine was stomach-turning.

"That's because it laid bare the essentially brutal nature of abortion," he continued, "Let's be blunt: Abortion involves the extraction and killing of a human life, which within a couple of weeks of pregnancy has a beating heart. Five weeks in, its hands and legs begin to grow. It is these tiny creatures, and too often ones that are far more developed, that are pulled from a mother's womb and crushed with forceps. Oh, but oh-so-carefully, lest body parts that can be sold are preserved. This gruesome procedure shows the extent to which we, as a people, have been anesthetized by the estimated 55 million -- 55 million -- abortions performed since the Supreme Court discovered a constitutional right to that procedure 42 years ago.

"Will we as a nation not someday look upon that decision and what it has done to us, not to mention the 55 million, with horror and regret?" Hume asked in conclusion. "One can only hope we will."