Does TED NUGENT Believe Women Should Have Access To Abortion? He Responds

In a recent interview with Ben Dryden, founder of Northwest Wisconsin's news outlet DrydenWire, conservative rocker Ted Nugent weighed in on the hot-button issue of abortion, particularly since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to the procedure in June 2022.

Nugent said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "When it comes to the abortion rights, I was wondering if anybody out there listening, has anyone been asked if you can take our tax dollars and pay Planned Parenthood to slaughter people? 'Cause babies are people. And now when [California governor] Gavin Newsom — which is a Joe Biden guy, which is a [liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Judge] Janet Protasiewicz guy — when he passed a law that you can kill the child as it's being born; you can stab it in the back of the head and suck out its brains. That's legal in California, and Gavin Newsom got a standing ovation. That's Janet Protasiewicz. That's what she believes in." [Editor's note: California prohibits most abortions after fetal viability, defined in state law as the point during a pregnancy at which there is "a reasonable likelihood of the fetus's sustained survival outside the uterus," usually around 24 weeks. Abortions in the third trimester are rare, and in California, permitted only if the mother's life or health is at risk.] "And I didn't authorize my money to go to the Ukraine or to pay the Taliban our military hardware or to kill babies at Planned Parenthood. But without our permission, the liberals and the Democrats are taking our hard-earned tax dollars and murdering babies as they're being born. Find me someone who can rationalize that. Find me someone that goes, 'Hey, I'm for that. That's a good idea. That's a moral idea.'

"And if a young lady gets pregnant and doesn't have a child, should she have the right to have an abortion? All right… I don't think so; it's a living being," Nugent continued. "What happened to maternal instincts? What happened to motherhood? What happens to respect for life? But if she's gonna do it, don't charge me and don't do it the day the baby is born. You wanna debate me on that? You think you can stab a baby in the back of the head? Why don't you just shoot him on his bike on the way to school? It's the same thing."

When Dryden noted that finding a middle ground on abortion has proven to be difficult, Ted said: "I've never met anybody that goes, 'Yeah, I really like abortions. Man, I can't wait to see that baby's guts hanging out. I love when you pull his brain out of the back of his head.' I've never met anybody like that, except when I see the Democrats protesting in New York City where they're actually saying the things I just condemned.

"But yes, there is middle ground," he continued. "Of course, if a woman is raped and… It's her temple — it is her temple — but there's a new temple growing in her temple.

"I've always said it's up the individual lady… When a woman gets pregnant, and for whatever reason, between her, her medical guidance and her spiritual guidance, they decide she doesn't wanna be a mother; she's not ready…

"I've had kids that I wasn't ready to raise, and we put 'em up for adoption — way back in the '60s," Ted admitted. "So I understand the psychological warfare that goes on when all of a sudden an individual is now responsible for the existence of another human. That's quite an emotional journey. I agree to that. And I would never interfere with someone else's emotional journey, until the kid is responding to stimuli in the womb and his fingers are moving and you're already thinking of names for him and what color his bedroom is gonna be.

"If a woman is raped or she doesn't want the child, and if she's a responsible individual and she decides early on… It's never a clump of cells; it's already life upon conception. But I'm not gonna interfere… If someone decides to have an abortion for incest, rape, their individual decision, I think there has to be limits to how long that baby is being developed. And if they do want an abortion, I ain't paying for it. You caused this… Even in incest. I suppose in an incest and rape, where there was a victim of violence, I suppose society should help to some degree.

"I would propose that there's no more traumatic, emotional spiritually testing moment in life than when a woman becomes pregnant," Nugent added. "You and I can only contemplate what that must be like… Well, when that baby's growing inside that woman, it's never gonna be that helpless. And I would like to think that empathy and compassion… That's why when I hear the term 'pro-abortion'… You have to be some kind of savage devil to be 'pro-abortion', to like it, and that's what these protestors are doing."

Ted also apparently referenced a video released in 2015 by an anti-abortion group that purportedly showed how Planned Parenthood was selling fetal organs for a profit, a felony, while violating medical ethics by altering normal abortion procedures so as to preserve the organs. Planned Parenthood later countered that it donated the tissue for scientific research and received only reimbursement for its expenses, which was legal. The group also said it helped people donate tissue "with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards."

"When Planned Parenthood is caught selling body parts of aborted fetuses for profit, it's over," Ted said. "You don't get any more tax dollars. That's not abortion. That's just vicious, demonic criminality, and they've been caught. So why would any tax dollars continue to go to Planned Parenthood so they can profit from selling dead babies? So it does get into that outrageous element and that's one of the considerations when we're talking about where our tax dollars go.

"So it's not about pro-abortion or anti-abortion. It's about life and love and empathy and caring and individual choice," Ted claimed.

"If I smoke and get cancer, why should you pay my doctor bills? I don't think you should. I think if I'm that stupid, I should take care of myself. And I'm not saying the women that get pregnant are stupid, but it's their individual lives that we're talking about and the new life inside of them."

Back in June 2022, Nugent said that the U.S. Supreme Court "did a good job" by ruling that Americans no longer have a constitutional right to abortion.

The conservative-leaning Supreme Court's ruling came in a case involving Mississippi's request to overturn Roe v. Wade — the court's 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the United States — and uphold a state law that bars the procedure 15 weeks after conception.

Roe v. Wade affirmed the right to receive an abortion under the 14th Amendment, ruling that abortions were constitutionally protected up until about 23 weeks when a fetus can typically live outside the womb.

The June 2022 decision overturned what was previously a federal legalization of abortion and returned the issue to individual states to decide the matter for themselves.

As a result of the Supreme Court's decision, terminating a pregnancy was expected to be banned or significantly curtailed in roughly half of all states in the nation — including nearly every state in the Midwest.

Nugent addressed the Supreme Court's ruling during "The Nightly Nuge", a news-style clip in which the outspoken conservative rocker offers his take on the news of our world. He said in part: "When the left keeps saying that, 'We lost our constitutional right to an abortion,' share that phrase in the Constitution with me where it gives you the right to kill the unborn… My point being, it isn't mentioned in the Constitution, so I'm gonna repeat once again, 'Any rights herein not enumerated are left up to the States.'

"Clearly, the abortion issue, like any other issue, idea or hunch that is not enumerated in the Constitution or the Bill Of Rights clearly is up to the states," he continued. "Even a guitar player doesn't need any translator for that one. So once again, it is the hysteria…

"By the way, as you and I speak right now, if anybody wants an abortion in America, guess what — they can get one," Nugent added. "It's not the banning of abortions; it's bringing it back to constitutionality and common sense.

"And again, there are medical concerns… Can you imagine, trying to make the decision where you have a choice to save the mother or the baby? Well, that is a spiritual moment between you and God and your health professional and the husband and the wife or at least the mother and the father.

"So, I am, and my family believes in, abortion should be legal, it should be safe and it should be rare," Ted said. "But don't send me the bill because I don't subscribe to murdering this innocent baby who the science has proven that it feels the pain when you kill it in the womb.

"This issue is just volatile. So the Supreme Court did a good job."

Despite Nugent's claim to the contrary, scientific research does not prove a 20-week-old fetus can feel pain.

According to FactCheck.org, scientific research on pain in the fetus is extremely complicated, primarily because pain is a subjective experience and a fetus cannot indicate if something hurts.

A 2022 CBS News/YouGov poll found that a 59% majority of U.S. adults disapproved of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, with 41% approving. About half (52%) called the decision a step backward for America, with 31% calling it a step forward and 17% saying it's neither. Among women, two-thirds (67%) disapproved of the ruling, with just 33% approving. A 56% majority of women said that the decision would make the lives of most American women worse.

According to a Forbes, Americans largely oppose harsh abortion laws, with 75% against policies that make it a criminal offense to perform an abortion, 69% opposing policies that ban abortion six to eight weeks into a pregnancy, 80% opposing laws that allow private citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an abortion and 63% supporting "safe haven laws" in Democratic-led states that would protect people who travel in from other states to get an abortion.