Former The View host Elisabeth Hasselbeck returned this week for a guest hosting slot on the show, and it has not gone over well.
The Christian conservative used part of her time on Wednesday's live show to ramble on at length about her religious beliefs about abortion rights, sparking a heated debate with her fellow co-hosts as well as among viewers on social media.
Hasselbeck's comments came during a discussion of the landslide defeat of a proposed abortion ban in the state of Kansas, which was voted on during the state's primary on Tuesday.
Hasselbeck's co-hosts became visibly annoyed as her diatribe about her religious beliefs continued to drag on for more than two minutes. See it below.
In her speech, Hasselbeck explained that she opposes abortion because of her religious beliefs and likened abortion to the death penalty. She said:
"There are options out there that extend beyond abortion … I believe our Creator assigns value to life. Those lives have plan and purpose over them, as designed by God."
Hasselbeck's co-hosts were quick to push back on her claims and religious fervor, including co-host Sunny Hostin, who said that as a Catholic she shares Hasselbeck's views that abortion is murder but also feels that such beliefs have no place in American law.
Hostin asked Hasselbeck:
"What if people don't believe in your God?..."
"...I'm Catholic... I believe when you have an abortion you are murdering an unborn child..."
"What do you say to the fact, Elisabeth, that I can't force my religion and my beliefs on other people? That is not the American way."
Hasselbeck responding by reorienting the discussion to one of religious morality, effectively declining to answer the question.
“I think oftentimes we get caught in the ‘right’ legislatively. Like, we’re getting caught in the law. Just because something is a right, doesn’t make it right.”
She went on to claim that Christians should show more mercy toward people who choose abortion, despite it being morally wrong according to her religious beliefs.
"We need to be able to have these conversations about what is really ethical and according to God. I don't force religion, and I also think sometimes in Christianity we need to offer more mercy. We need to not shame women."
Co-host Joy Behar was quick to counter by pointing out the inconsistencies in Hasselbeck's claims and beliefs.
"But when you're prohibiting something you are, in fact, judging them."
Moderator Whoopi Goldberg also pushed back on Hasselbeck's zealotry.
"God made us smart enough to know when it wasn’t going to work for us,” she said. “That’s the beauty of giving us freedom of choice."
Hasselbeck countered by bizarrely holding up a dish towel she brought with her which read, "I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong." Okay then.
As you might guess, Twitter had a lot less patience for Hasselbeck than her co-hosts did.
Hasselbeck's diatribe came on the heels of co-host Joy Behar revealing that she suffered an ectopic pregnancy that nearly killed her. Behar said she does not consider the procedure she received to be an abortion, an assertion with which Hasselbeck agreed.
But many procedures used to treat ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages are in fact abortions, and many states' present and proposed abortion bans do not carry exceptions for such cases. Life-threatening chaos has already ensued from such laws.
