5 abortion claims from James Talarico Christians must reject

In a debate with citizens aired on CNN, a Christian woman pressed Texas senatorial candidate James Talarico on the issue of abortion. Talarico rattled off a myriad of lies in his response that must be challenged. 

1. “The Bible is silent on abortion”

The living and active Word of God is not silent on abortion. Abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human being, and the Ten Commandments give us an explicit command: “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13).

Ninety-six percent of biologists agree that human life begins at the moment of conception. Every unborn child possesses a unique genetic code and capacity for self-directed growth, and his or her personhood is not limited by size, location, stage of development, or level of dependency. All human life bears the dignity due to humans created in the Image of God and owed a constitutional right to life — boy or girl, abled or disabled, expected or unexpected. 

Instead of intentional killing, Talarico refers to abortion as “healthcare.” It is not. Healthcare is broadly defined as “the field concerned with the maintenance or restoration of the health of the body or mind.” Abortion kills an unborn human, making it the opposite of “maintenance” and “restoration.” Pregnancy is not a disease or a disorder — it is the unique capacity of women to grow, nurture, and sustain a new human life. 

The Bible is clear. Abortion is a violation of the sixth commandment. 

2. “Abortion is necessary in cases of rape and incest”

Abortion is not the answer to the tragedy of sexual assault. Women who have faced the trauma of assault deserve help and healing, and children conceived in rape should not be sentenced to death for the crimes of their fathers. Circumstances of conception do not define human worth and do not justify killing an innocent human. More harm does not heal harm already done to a mother, and adoption is a legitimate option for women unable to raise their son or daughter. 

To flip Talarico’s claim on its head, abortion actually empowers abusers, rapists, and sex traffickers. Unregulated abortion drugs ordered and delivered via mail allow criminals to obtain abortion drugs to cover up their crimes, perpetuate abuse, and force unwanted abortions on women and girls without a trace. Since 2001, there have been 29 publicly recorded instances of abortion drug poisoning by male abusers resulting in death or significant injury.  

In 2022, Jagmeet Sandhu broke into his girlfriend’s home, held her at gunpoint, and forced her to take the abortion drug. In 2025, a woman lost her child when Hassan-James Abbas, a surgical resident at the University of Toledo, attacked her in her sleep and held her down while he pushed abortion inducing drugs into her mouth. In 2026, Jamelle Kelly was arrested on felony charges after allegedly giving his pregnant 17-year-old daughter mifepristone without her knowledge. The teen became ill and required an emergency C-section; her baby was delivered at 23 weeks, weighing about one pound. 

Abortion does not empower victims of assault. It creates victims. 

3. “Women are dying under abortion bans”

There is no medical condition that requires an induced abortion to save a woman’s life.

Obstetricians affirm that abortion is never medically necessary to save a mother’s life — even abortionists. Abortionist Dr. Don Sloan, who by the end of his career had performed 20,000 abortions, wrote: “The idea of abortion to save the mothers’ life is something that people cling to because it sounds noble and pure — but medically speaking, it probably doesn’t exist. It’s a real stretch of our thinking.”

That’s because miscarriage care, ectopic pregnancy care, and life-saving obstetric procedures are distinctly notabortions. No pro-life law prohibits such interventions.

In more complicated life-threatening scenarios like pre-eclampsia, hemorrhage, infection, and cardiovascular collapse, there are legitimate, life-affirming medical solutions. In the first trimester of pregnancy, maternal-fetal separation allows an unborn child a dignified, painless death in a life-or-death scenario where a pregnancy must be ended to save a woman’s life. First-trimester maternal-fetal separation may result in the death of the premature child, but the separation is not an abortion (which would involve starvation of the baby and home stillbirth or live dismemberment). 

In the second trimester, early delivery to save a mother’s life is the alternative to a painful dismemberment abortion and, paired with NICU treatment, allows the baby a chance to live. A woman in a fast-paced second-trimester complication will not undergo a slow dismemberment abortion; she will get immediate care with an early delivery. In the third trimester, early delivery via induced labor or C-section is always safer, faster, and less expensive than a four-to-five-day late-term abortion (which includes induced cardiac arrest in the child, cervical dilation, and stillbirth of a fully developed baby). 

Women deserve high-quality, life-affirming obstetric care in the face of ectopic pregnancies, miscarriage, and stillbirth—none of which are abortions, and none of which are prohibited by any pro-life state law. Pro-life laws are not the reason women are scared and doctors confused about what life-saving procedures they can perform. Pro-life laws are clear that the care women experiencing life-threatening complications need is completely legal. 

But abortion advocates like Talarico have muddied the waters by claiming that medical providers may face criminal penalties for ectopic pregnancy care and miscarriage management. Why? To sow fear and chaos for their own benefit. Too often, women experiencing miscarriage avoid going to the hospital out of fear inspired by pro-abortion rhetoric. Real women are being harmed as Big Abortion sacrifices the truth for its own political gain.

There are two patients in every pregnancy: mom and baby. Life-affirming obstetric medicine delivers quality care while preserving human life and dignity for mothers and their unborn children.

4. “I can respect anyone who is consistently pro-life”

The term “pro-life” has a specific cultural and political meaning. It describes an opposition to the killing of innocent unborn lives by abortion. But the Left tends to wield the term in its own favor to discredit or disregard pro-lifers — so when Talarico says he “respects anyone who is consistently pro-life,” he implies that he does not respect pro-life people who reject abortion in all circumstances and do not agree with him on other political issues like immigration, welfare, or gender identity issues. He co-opts the term “pro-life” for his own purposes and forgets the unborn. 

Of course, Christians are to care for the dignity of all people. We can and should honestly discuss and disagree on how best to extend dignity to the poor through differing policy proposals, and we can disagree on what are the most dignifying immigration policies — but there is no ambiguity when it comes to abortion. Killing is killing. The 65 million unborn babies killed by abortion in the United States since 1973 need faithful, fierce, and focused advocates in the public square. “Pro-life” means anti-abortion in all circumstances.

5. “Contraception and sex education reduce the number of abortions”

Birth control and sex education were born out of the sexual revolution of the late 20th century, paired with the radical post-Roe v. Wade explosion in national abortion numbers. Birth control encouraged men and women to engage in sex outside of marriage, and sex education taught teenagers that it is safe to engage in casual sex without paying long-term consequences as long as they use condoms or the birth control pill. 

But the sexual revolution failed to teach men and women that birth control is not 100% effective — so when it inevitably fails and a woman becomes unexpectedly pregnant, abortion is sold as the “easiest” answer. Our culture has forgotten that pregnancy is the intended, normal biological outcome of sexual intercourse, and Talarico should know that birth control and modern sex education increase the societal demand for abortions. 

James Talarico is a smooth talker with shallow, unsubstantiated moral claims, and his lies about abortion prove that point. Beyond politics and campaigns, Christians must know and defend the truth about abortion.