MSNBC guest Melissa Harris-Perry upset pro-life advocates recently when she talked about how much it costs “to have this thing turn into a human” when referring to an unborn baby. Over Easter weekend, she did it again.
Harris-Perry’s earlier comment made pro-lifers wonder whether she has any grasp on the science behind fetal development. On Easter, she was back with another off-putting comment referring to children before birth as things.
HARRIS-PERRY: So my only worry about that, is because I feel like a lot, I mean, having an 11-year-old, I do a lot of kids reading that sort of thing. But I feel like we do that, but it`s always about private morality, right? It feels sort of like to the extent that we talk about morality in the public sphere, we talk about private morality, who you should and shouldn’t sleep with, how you should or should not dispose of things in your uterus. I mean, you know, this is — this is what we think of as morality, right? But we don`t talk about public morality, what it means.
She then went on a “War on Women” rant with her fellow talking heads.
KATHA POLLITT: Can I say something?
HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.
POLLITT: OK. Well, you know, it`s a very good question to ask why isn’t religion as concerned about water and economic justice and all these things as it is and as they mentioned sexual morality.
And I would say that`s not an accident. It’s not just that they haven`t thought oh, water, right? It`s that one of the things that religion is about is the control of women. These religions were all invented by men for men.
And controlling women is very important. And the way you do that is by regulating women`s sexuality. Men’s sexuality a little bit but that`s never been too effective. But if you read the Bible, they`re always going on about prostitutes and harlots and barren women and women who —
ANTHEA BUTLER, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: You know why? Because they`re afraid of the other religions like everybody else, who the women are powerful, right? So, this is a different thing.
POLLITT: Okay.
BUTLER: That`s the other part of it. It`s like — how do you — you repress these women.
