Host also in hot water over ‘baby Hitler’ comments
Ben Shapiro said being ‘not in line’ with a society that supports abortion is not really a bad thing.
During his speech to the 2019 March for Life in Washington D.C., American conservative commentator Ben Shapiro responded to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2018 claim that pro-life people are not “in line … with society.” Shapiro said such criticism might, in fact, be a good thing.
Shapiro explained, “Maybe they’re right. Maybe we today here are not in line with the rest of society. To which I say, ‘good.’ So were the abolitionists. So were the civil rights marchers. So were the martyrs in Rome and the Jews in Egypt.” Shapiro continued: “Righteousness doesn’t have to be popular; it just has to be righteous,” he added to thunderous applause.
During a 2018 town-hall meeting in Hamilton, Ont., Trudeau was asked about the attestation his government was forcing companies, charities, and non-government organizations sign before receiving federal funding for summer students that made such grants contingent upon expressly supporting abortion and gay rights. The government said it was defending Charter rights but critics claimed it was an ideological litmus test to receive government funding. Trudeau answered that pro-lifers are “not in line with where we are as a government and quite frankly where we are as a society.” The Prime Minister explained, “Of course, you’re more than allowed to have whatever beliefs you like, but when those beliefs lead to actions determined to restrict a woman’s right to control her own body, that’s where I, and I think we, draw the line as a country. And that’s where we stand on that.” Trudeau maintained his government had no obligation to “fund organizations that are determined to remove rights that have been so long fought for by women.”
Shapiro told the 600,000-strong National March for Life assembled at and around the National Mall in the U.S. capital that despite many media outlets ignoring the massive march, their stand would not be forgotten: “Our children slaughtered over the decades remember. They look at us from above, and they know that they meant something, that they do mean something so long as we keep them in our minds and in our hearts … Our children standing here with us today, they will remember too, and they will march until they no longer have to march. Our children yet unborn will remember, and they will thank us in our prayers.” Shapiro added, “And most of all, God. The God who built and preserves nations, who brings life and maintains it, who stands with those who suffer most at the hands of evil. He will remember us too. He will remember America and he will bless her. God will bless us, because we are the guardians of His most precious creations. We stand between America and the darkness, and we will march until that darkness is banished forever, and all of our children can stand together in the sunlight.”
Shapiro hosts a daily podcast from where he broadcast the March. Discussing how abortion is immoral, the Jewish conservative host and writer made his point with a hypothetical, saying if he could go back in time and kill German dictator Adolf Hitler while he was still a baby, he wouldn’t. “The truth is that no pro-life person on earth would kill baby Hitler, because baby Hitler wasn’t Hitler, adult Hitler was Hitler,” Shapiro said. “Baby Hitler was a baby. What you presumably want to do with baby Hitler is take baby Hitler out of baby Hitler’s house and move baby Hitler into a better house where he would not grow up to be Hitler, right?” The baby Hitler issue is often used as a thought experiment in ethics courses and philosophical conversations.
Shapiro’s show lost two advertisers, toothbrush manufacturer Quip and the meditation app Calm.
