Kanye West, 43, has taken his “pro-life” views a step further by shocking Twitter with illustrations of unborn fetuses and an anti-abortion statement. On July 8, the music artist and 2020 presidential candidate tweeted a screenshot of a bizarre Google search: “what does a 6 month fetus look like.” This pulled up illustrated photos of unborn babies, which led Kanye to write, “These souls deserve to live.”
https://twitter.com/ROSESGNG/status/1281003186073989120
Of course, the tweet immediately drew criticism. It’s extremely rare for a doctor to perform an abortion after six months of pregnancy (or 26 weeks), and “you can get an abortion later than 24 weeks only in rare cases for medical reasons,” Planned Parenthood reported on July 1. The CDC also reported in 2014 that “only 1.4 percent” of abortions are performed “at or after 21 weeks,” a statistic that was also relayed by Planned Parenthood.
Kanye didn’t need to look at these statistics to learn this, though. “Does kanye west really think that someone will carry a fetus inside them for 6 months and then get bored and decide to abort it.. does he not understand that serious pregnancy complications can require inevitable late term abortions??,” one person tweeted, and another person wrote a similar point: “nobody is getting abortions that late term for non medical reasons and NO MAN. (especially kanye west) should be able to control what a woman does with her body.”
We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States 🇺🇸! #2020VISION
— ye (@kanyewest) July 5, 2020
Kanye soon deleted the tweet, and instead posted photos of his kids Saint West, 4, Chicago West, 2, and Psalm West, 1, whom he shares with wife Kim Kardashian, 39 (they also share a fourth child, daughter North West, 7). The “Runaway” rapper’s anti-abortion tweet came after he expressed similar views in a controversial interview with Forbes, which ran online earlier that same day. “I am pro-life because I’m following the word of the bible. Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work,” he told the outlet.
It was a puzzling claim to make, since Kim made it clear that she was a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood in 2017. It was also met with a quick rebuttal from Planned Parenthood’s Director of Black Leadership and Engagement, Nia Martin-Robinson, who didn’t appreciate Kanye’s wild conspiracy theory. “Black women are free to make our own decisions about our bodies and pregnancies, and want and deserve to have access to the best medical care available. Any insinuation that abortion is Black genocide is offensive and infantilizing. The real threat to Black communities’ safety, health, and lives stems from lack of access to quality, affordable health care, police violence and the criminalization of reproductive health care by anti-abortion opposition,” Nia said in a statement.
Kanye is no stranger to controversy. He infamously met with Donald Trump inside the Oval Office in Oct. 2018 and touted the POTUS’s loathed MAGA hat. In an ironic twist, Kanye later told Trump to “bow out” of the 2020 presidential race — along with Democratic candidate Joe Biden — after announcing his bid. Kim and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are currently serving as Kanye’s advisors.