Friday morning, on the infamously progressive talk show “The View,” 85-year-old actress Jane Fonda (pictured) made a disturbing recommendation for dealing with pro-lifers: murder. The remarks came amid a conversation regarding Fonda’s pro-abortion activism, particularly in the months following the Dobbs Supreme Court decision last June. As hosts Sonny Hostin and Joy Behar simpered sweet nothings about Fonda winning a Nobel Prize, the conversation quickly turned awkward when Behar asked Fonda how to extend pro-abortion activism beyond merely marching and protesting.
“Well, I’ve thought of murder,” Fonda asserted, repeating the word “murder” as the women gathered around her laughed uncomfortably.
Despite the audience’s amusement and assurances from the show’s hosts that the actress was simply joking, viewers were left to wonder — does Fonda really believe that advocating for life in the womb is justification for someone to be murdered? And in a culture where progressives are keener than ever to claim that mere words can be violence, how can Fonda get away with literally suggesting murder?
Perhaps Fonda’s comments wouldn’t hit home for pro-lifers so acutely were it not for the barrage of terrorism that the pro-life community has suffered in the last year. Family Research Council has tracked over 125 instances of pro-abortion violence against pro-life pregnancy resource centers, churches, and individuals in the past year; just last week, a pregnancy resource center in Minneapolis was vandalized with the same familiar message that pro-lifers have learned to expect: “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you.”
In many instances, pro-abortion harassment has gone far beyond vandalism and threats. A CompassCare pro-life pregnancy resource center in Buffalo, New York was firebombed in June of 2022; the attack caused $500,000 in damages and forced the center to spend the next 52 days rebuilding. Despite the violence already occurring against these charity centers, radical abortion lover Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) accused pregnancy resource centers of “torturing” women and called for their doors to be closed — a move that, were the partisan tables turned, would certainly have been characterized as an incitement of violence.
In light of Fonda’s incurable enthusiasm to do harm to those who advocate for the life of the unborn, it’s important to consider her personal background on the issue. Fonda’s mother, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and eventually died by suicide, aborted nine of Jane’s older siblings before finally giving birth to her. Both Fonda and her mother suffered sexual assault and childhood sexual abuse. While there is certainly zero excuse for her abortion advocacy, much less her calls for violence against pro-lifers, understanding Fonda’s background helps paint a fuller picture of why she is so desperate to preserve social acceptance and celebration of abortion as a moral good rather than as the affront to human dignity that it truly is.
Just last week, conservative pundit Michael Knowles was accused of advocating genocide against people who identify as transgender because of a statement he made during a speech at CPAC. Even White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre slanderously accused Knowles of calling for the “eradication of transgender people.”
What Knowles actually said was, “For the good of society and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely, the whole preposterous ideology — at every level.”
While Knowles’s circumstances are more akin to misrepresentation, given that he never actually proposed violence against human beings, the incident still serves to prove a significant cultural point: progressives can’t have it both ways. Either words must be chosen with extreme delicacy and sensitivity because they will be construed as calls to violence — or not. And, if calls for political violence against other human beings are something to be condemned, then they must be universally condemned — even when the call is coming from inside the house.
A final (and significant) point to consider is that, even when pro-abortion advocates are not calling for murder against born people, they are nevertheless fighting desperately to perpetuate the shedding of innocent blood. Every “successful” abortion ends the life of a unique, unrepeatable human being. There can be no peaceful or nonviolent support of abortion, because to support abortion is inherently a promotion of violence.
Thankfully, given what the pro-life movement has demonstrated the willingness to withstand in the last year for the sake of protecting unborn children, it’s clear that the thoughtless snark of a Hollywood celebrity will do little to deter pro-life activism.
This article appeared originally here.
Notice: This column is printed with permission. Opinion pieces published by AFN.net are the sole responsibility of the article's author(s), or of the person(s) or organization(s) quoted therein, and do not necessarily represent those of the staff or management of, or advertisers who support the American Family News Network, AFN.net, our parent organization or its other affiliates.