A University of Missouri college student asked conservative pundit Ben Shapiro Thursday night if abortion should be permitted in cases of rape — and the New York Times bestselling author had a blunt response to the question.
Shapiro, who said that rapists should either be killed or castrated, said the issue of rape and abortion were “unrelated” to one another.
“Killing babies is wrong. Okay, these are two separate questions,” he told the Mizzou student. “They have nothing to do with one another. Connecting these two things is like saying, ‘I was raped, therefore I get to go shoot an unrelated person.’”
Watch the exchange (remarks around 12:48 mark):
The “Bullies” author argued that the political left often asks about rape while discussing abortion to introduce confusion.
“The two are unrelated. It’s an emotional argument to muddy the waters,” he said. “It’s amazing to me because the same people on the left who say, ‘Well, shouldn’t a raped woman be allowed to abort her baby?’ These are the same people who want to release rapists from prison after five years.”
Shapiro told students that the best way to decrease the frequency of rape would be to implement strict punishment for those found guilty of committing the crime.
“If you really want to stop this from happening, here’s a solution: go prosecute, castrate and kill rapists,” he said. “That’s a really good solution.”
“I have another solution,” Shapiro added. “Let women carry guns and teach them how to use them. So any time they are in a position of rape, they shoot the guy. The left’s solution seems to be to stop the baby, my solution is to stop the rape.”
Shapiro’s talk at the University of Missouri was, in part, sponsored by the conservative Young America’s Foundation.