(LifeSiteNews) — Our current political era has turned many once-prominent figures into impossible-to-predict weird versions of themselves (Rudy Guiliani, anyone?) but perhaps no transformation has been as stark as that of Ann Coulter.
A tall, slender, blond firebrand, Coulter built a take-no-prisoners reputation as a polemicist specializing in trashing liberals, with her books featuring titles such as Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America; Godless: The Church of American Liberalism; How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must); and If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans.
Being strident and over the top was always her shtick, which is why she was, for a time, a popular guest on cable TV and packed speaking venues (when I saw her speak at CPAC in 2010, she had legions of adoring fans swarming her events). And one of her favorite fallback arguments when she was accused of demonizing Democrats was pointing out their position on abortion. After all, if they were committed to killing babies, how could she be exaggerating? It was a potent rhetorical point, and she knew it.
After years of making money as a pro-lifer and calling for the end of Roe v. Wade, post-Roe Ann Coulter has become a very different person.
Last month, I highlighted her relentless campaign to blame the pro-life movement for GOP election losses, insisting that abortion was a losing issue and that her new “compromise position” to stop losing elections was to “make abortion illegal only for registered Republicans.” The GOP, she stated, should instead stick to a 15-week federal ban (if that). The rock-ribbed pro-lifer, it seems, is only willing to advocate a legal regime significantly more liberal than most countries in Europe – liberal countries she has mocked relentlessly for decades.
Despite the hypocrisy of Coulter’s position – not to mention the dizzying about-face and sudden downplaying of what she would once have agreed is America’s greatest injustice – she has previously insisted that she only holds that position because she thinks the GOP must win elections in order for pro-life laws to be possible (which she also thinks they shouldn’t pass them because they might lose elections, but whatever). And I believe she believes that – or at least, I did. That was before she started adopting pro-abortion language and making their case for them.
In response to the case of a Texas mother who filed suit against the state in order to procure an abortion because her pre-born child was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, Coulter sided with the abortion activists over the pro-lifers. To be clear, the pro-abortion position is naked eugenics: the child should be killed in the womb because he or she will likely have a very short life. Coulter claims to hold pro-life views, meaning that she knows it is a child, and knows that child will be killed. And yet, on X, she used the language that abortion activists use to insist that sick or disabled children in the womb should be aborted: “The prolife movement has gone from compassion for the child to cruelty to the mother (and child). Trisomy 18 is not a condition that is compatible with life.”
The prolife movement has gone from compassion for the child to cruelty to the mother (and child).
Trisomy 18 is not a condition that is compatible with life.https://t.co/L91RmsCrJq
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) December 12, 2023
Let’s be clear here: Coulter is saying that it is cruel to protect children in the womb if they have been diagnosed with Trisomy 18, and not cruel to decapitate, dismember, and disembowel those children in abortion clinics. She even insinuates that allowing that child to live rather than be killed is also somehow cruel, and repeats the eugenic talking point that such children are not “compatible with life.” It is also somehow cruel to the mother. Nobody who believes abortion kills a child can also believe the things Coulter just said.
After an entire career of debunking insidious liberal talking points, Coulter decided to take their side on aborting disabled children. Interestingly, a Canadian study thoroughly repudiates Coulter on this issue: “In this population-based retrospective cohort study of 174 children with trisomy 13 and 254 children with trisomy 18, early mortality was common, but 10% to 13% survived for 10 years. Among children who underwent surgery, 1-year survival was 69% to 71%.” But Coulter didn’t read that, of course – she was too busy listening to Planned Parenthood and others who were once her mortal enemies but are now somehow on the same side.
Former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum responded by posting a photograph of his teenage daughter Bella, who has Trisomy 18: “Meet my incompatible w life daughter Bella. Her docs put her on hospice at 10 days old. Other countries have much higher survival rates than US because they treat the baby not the diagnosis. Every kid deserves a shot at life, not be brutally dismembered for not being perfect.”
Meet my incompatible w life daughter Bella. Her docs put her on hospice at 10 days old. Other countries have much higher survival rates than US because they treat the baby not the diagnosis. Every kid deserves a shot at life, not be brutally dismembered for not being perfect. pic.twitter.com/QKVAREEyVY
— Rick Santorum (@RickSantorum) December 12, 2023
Coulter did not respond. Catholic commentator Patrick Coffin also responded with a heartfelt message and photo: “Dear @AnnCoulter: this is my gorgeous daughter, Naomi Rose. She graced our lives for 15 unspeakably beautiful, if tough, unforgettable days. She had trisomy 9. I’m so glad you were not part of her medical ‘care.’”
Dear @AnnCoulter: this is my gorgeous daughter, Naomi Rose. She graced our lives for 15 unspeakably beautiful, if tough, unforgettable days. She had trisomy 9. I’m so glad you were not part of her medical “care.” https://t.co/SbsH7h060H pic.twitter.com/MWme7Fxzeh
— Hope Is Fuel (@CoffinMedia) December 12, 2023
Ann Coulter is campaigning against children like those little girls. Her position is not just coldblooded political pragmatism – her position is that those children are “incompatible with life.” She has gone from political calculation to a defense of pro-abortion positions. I would urge Coulter – and anyone with questions about this issue – to spend a few moments watching one of the most beautiful short films I have ever seen. It will change you:
