New Orleans Saints tight end Benjamin Watson has always been outspoken about his pro-life Christian values. In the wake of the recently shot down Virginia HB 2491, which would have allowed a mother to request an abortion even as she is showing signs of going into labor, the father of five took to social media to share his thoughts with Gov. Ralph Northam.
In a radio interview Wednesday, Northam defended the radical bill, also known at “The Repeal Act,” going a step further to defend infanticide as a medical decision made between a mother and a physician.
“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” he told WTOP Radio. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Following the intense backlash Northam received from both sides of the political aisle (including President Trump himself), the governor and pediatric neurologist took to Twitter to defend his reputation:
I have devoted my life to caring for children and any insinuation otherwise is shameful and disgusting.
— Governor Ralph Northam (@VAGovernor73) January 31, 2019
Watson responded to Northam on Twitter with a simple, perhaps inconvenient, truth:
Children in utero deserve equal devotion Governor. https://t.co/yG2mGz1R2j
— Benjamin Watson (@BenjaminSWatson) January 31, 2019
“Children in utero deserve equal devotion Governor,” he wrote.
In a separate Instagram post, Watson, whose wife Kirsten is pregnant with twins, shared an ultrasound photo of his unborn children, along with the text of Psalm 139:13:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BtSSr3jlcDe/?utm_source=ig_twitter_share&igshid=u7jg4f35vp0y
“For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb,” the post reads.
Over the years, Benjamin and Kirsten Watson have used their platform to share their Christian faith and pro-life values. Last year, the couple donated a state-of-the-art 3D/4D ultrasound machine to a Maryland pregnancy clinic.
And in 2016, Watson called out Planned Parenthood, rebuking the nation’s largest abortion provider for targeting minority communities for abortion. He said pregnancy termination “seems to be something that is really pushed on minorities and provided to minorities especially as something that they should do.”
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan organization devoted to providing Virginians with “easy access to public documents related to money in politics,” Ralph Northam has received nearly $2 million from Planned Parenthood since 2013.