Sophia Nelson Invokes Slavery in Conservative-on-Conservative Abortion Debate on CNN: ‘I’d Be 3/5 of a Person’ Under Original Text

TheGrio contributing editor Sophia Nelson argued against overturning Roe v. Wade with fellow conservative and CNN contributor Alice Stewart using a variety of points.

On Wednesday morning’s edition of CNN’s New Day, anchor Brianna Keilar hosted the two conservative women — both of whom describe themselves as “pro-life” — to debate the draft Supreme Court decision that was leaked to Politico Monday night that would overturn the right to abortion if it goes into effect.

In a polite discussion, Nelson and Stewart traded arguments that culminated in Nelson calling out conservative “hypocrisy” on bodily autonomy where Covid masks are concerned, and rebutting Stewart’s praise for originalism with history:

SOPHIA NELSON: Alice is a wonderful woman, a friend. We’re both pro-life. But here’s what I see. If you’re going to be out here protesting about mask, and saying that a mask impinges upon your liberty as an American, and that it is something that is so grave that in the case of Michigan, they wanted to take out the governor of Michigan because she was impinging upon their liberty, asking them to wear a mask. How can you then not extend that to a woman, Brianna, and the care of her own health and her own body, and the decision about what to do with the pregnancy? And I think this is where conservatives are getting into trouble. They’re inconsistent. There’s some hypocrisy going on. For me personally, pro-life Sophia Nelson wouldn’t have an abortion. I don’t agree with it. But another woman can make a different choice than me. And that doesn’t make her any less American or any less a good human being. She has to deal with the consequences of her choices. But I think we got to find some common ground here because this country’s a powder keg right now and it’s about to explode. And I’m concerned about that.

ALICE STEWART: If I can say this, to re-emphasize Sophia as a friend, she’s a smart attorney and she knows the law. And she mentioned stare decisis, which is let the decision stand. Justice Alito addressed that in this opinion where they applied the principles of stare decisis, but they also applied the law and made the decision based on that, and is quite clear in his opinion that what they did is they looked at the actual constitution and they saw there is no reference directly to abortion in the Constitution, and therefore Roe is egregiously wrong from the start. That’s why they made this decision. And Republicans like myself have been fighting for years to appoint justices to the Supreme Court, that are strict interpretationists of the Constitution. That’s what they’re doing. They’re looking at the Constitution and applying the law on that basis. And for that matter…

SOPHIA NELSON: Hey Brianna…

ALICE STEWART: …then Roe v Wade should be overturned.

SOPHIA NELSON: Hey, Brianna. The word filibuster is not in the Constitution, but Republicans support that, don’t they? So at the end of the day, there’s a whole lot of words that aren’t in the Constitution. If I were back 200 plus years ago, I’d be 3/5 of a person. Thank God the Constitution lives, breathes and expands, and grows with the times. We’re when the year 2022. Are we really telling women you’re going to go back to unsafe procedures? Because guess what? Women are going to have abortions. They’re going to do it. And they’re not going to just go across state lines because only rich women or upper middle class women like Alice and myself can do something like that. That’s not something everybody else can do. So I think, again, we have to strike some type of balance here.

Watch above via CNN.