Betsy DeVos Compares Abortion Rights Advocates To Supporters Of Slavery

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos compared pro-choice supporters of abortion to 19th-century supporters of slavery who thought the issue should be left to the states to decide.

“[Abraham Lincoln], too, contended with the ‘pro-choice’ arguments of his day,” she said during prepared remarks at a Colorado Christian University event in Washington, D.C. Wednesday night. “They suggested that a state’s ‘choice’ to be slave or to be free had no moral question in it.”

According to Politico, she said Lincoln told “those pro-choicers” that the majority of Americans viewed slavery as immoral and evil.

“Lincoln was right about the slavery ‘choice’ then, and he would be right about the life ‘choice’ today,” she said. “Because as it’s been said: Freedom is not about doing what we want. Freedom is about having the right to do what we ought.”

SLIDESHOW: TOP DEMOCRATS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2020

Students from the university traveled to D.C. to attend the March for Life in protest of abortion, Colorado Politics reported.

The Democratic National Committee condemned DeVos’ statements as “an indication of the sorry state of Republican leadership.”

“What an insult to the generations of Americans who still live with the scars of slavery and Jim Crow. What an insult to those who have fought valiantly to make abortion safe and legal in all 50 states,” DNC CEO Seema Nanda and Louisiana Democratic Party Chair Karen Carter Peterson said in a joint statement.

“The secretary of education remains woefully uneducated on the history of our country. Her ignorance would be laughable if it weren’t so disturbing,” the statement continued. “As with so many issues she’s commented on before, Secretary Devos has once again failed a simple test of competence and character. November 3 can’t come soon enough.”

Nov. 3 is the date of the 2020 presidential election.