Recently, I went to my uncle’s house to celebrate my cousin’s birthday. As typically happens in a family gathering, at least in my family, politics came up. The most recent political story that we were talking about was the “Unite The Right” white supremacist rally. (I’m still trying to figure out exactly how they plan to “unite the right” behind an avowed socialist). We then got to talking about the other side. I made the point about how both the people in Antifa and the white supremacists would be shocked once they figured out how much they had in common with the other side, as white supremacist ringleader, Richard Spencer, is on the record blasting capitalism and calling for single-payer healthcare. To further make my point, I brought up Spencer’s vocal advocacy of abortion. If one completely ignored Spencer’s status as a far-left socialist, they would be surprised to hear this, as Spencer is often associated with a “right-wing” ideology, while abortion advocacy is associated with the political left. Again, Richard Spencer’s abortion advocacy is only surprising to those who fundamentally misunderstand who he is, but, considering that this encompasses a large segment of the population, this must be stressed.
In case it wasn’t already obvious, Richard Spencer supports abortion due to its racial undertones. Spencer’s take is that “…highly intelligent career women will have abortions on occasion, but… The people who are having abortions are very often black or Hispanic or from very poor circumstances…”. Spencer also called for disability-selective abortion because of course he did, saying “Smart people are using abortion when you have a situation like Down Syndrome”. Using the same disturbing facts about the African-American and Hispanic abortion rates and the disability selective abortion rates that the rest of us have, Spencer makes the case that these are good things. For someone who has, on multiple occasions, led crowds in Nazi salutes, this should not surprise anyone. Everyone knows that Spencer is a racist and ableist, so more African Americans being killed by Planned Parenthood in a day than by police in a year is obviously something that he loves. Any situation that involves large numbers of African- Americans and people with disabilities being killed is something that someone with the views of Richard Spencer would obviously like. In a way, Spencer’s take on abortion is an important one to look at and think about, as it reveals things about abortion that most people would rather suppress.
Sources:
https://www.lifeissues.org/2017/03/nothing-common-alt-right/
About The Contributor
