Ben Carson Has Now Compared Abortion to Slavery

During an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson compared abortion to slavery. After saying he was opposed to a person’s right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, Carson added, “During slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave. Anything that they chose to do. And what if the abolitionists had said, ‘I don’t believe in slavery. I think it’s wrong, but you guys do whatever you want to do.’ Where would we be?”

Slavery appears to be one of the presidential candidate’s favorite talking points. In 2013, Carson compared it to Obamacare, reports Slate. “Obamacare is really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery,” Carson said at the time. “And it is in a way, it is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care. It was about control.”

In regards to Roe v. Wade, the “soft-spoken” retired neurosurgeon said he would ultimately “love” to see it overturned. Carson also said he may be open to discuss termination of pregnancies when the mother’s life is at risk. Describing that type of situation as “extraordinarily rare,” Carson explained, “I’m a reasonable person. And if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, I’ll listen.”

When it comes to cases of pregnancies resulting from rape and incest, Carson is opposed to abortion. “Rape and incest, I would not be in favor of killing a baby because the baby came about in that way. And all you have to do is go and look up the many stories of people who have led very useful lives who were the result of rape or incest.”