"The View" is one of those TV programs that is a great barometer of the culture. The people they get to host this show are usually very ignorant of the issues discussed and rely more on ad hominum attacks and emotion-filled appeals rather than logic.

But sometimes the amount of ignorance is astonishing. Yesterday, Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul appeared on the show and was grilled by hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar about his beliefs on abortion.

You can read through the transcript of their discussion and see that in the end both Whoopi and Joy really don't know where they stand on abortion. When Mr. Paul asked them if they were OK with aborting an 8 month old baby they both said they were not but Whoopi insisted that this was not even possible. Mr. Paul trys to tell them that Roe allowed for abortion through all 9 months but they are not listening.

Even more astounding is this line from Whoopi:

GOLDBERG: Well, that’s, that’s the idea. But here’s my question: If you make a decision that this is where you need to go, because I said to somebody else earlier on this show, no one makes this decision lightly. This is not someone somebody says "oh I think I’ll go get this." This is not a fun thing to go do. So someone has come to that place to make that decision is because it really needs to be there. Now, I think you should be able to get some help if you’re reaching out for somebody like that. What bothers me is that there is no one who says "here’s what we can do" because, you know, we have all of these children. What are we going to do with them? If everybody has the kids. Nobody, the churches don’t want to take them. Nobody wants to put them in the thing- no I want to finish the thing, period.

It's hard to tell exactly what she is talking about but the notion that nobody wants them or that the churches won't help is simply not true and is more indicative of the culture she is surrounded by rather than the reality about the kinds of help that is available for women who are pregnant and in need.

Ultimately it's not important for The View to get the record straight. We don't expect them to. But if you ever wanted to do a study of rotten American culture and how ignorant people are, The View is a great place to start.

Labels: Roe