Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a Democratic presidential candidate, took a pit stop at a nearby lemonade stand as she was traveling through Iowa last month, and her money went to a cause she probably wasn’t anticipating.
Warren’s bus pulled off the road in Harlan in early August, when the 70-year-old politician noticed a quaint lemonade stand run by two 11-year-old girls, Sienna Michels and Audrey Billings, and saw an opportunity for a photo-op.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, Warren paid the girls $7 for seven cups of lemonade and then donated $3 to the kids.
Michels’ dad, Dan, who supported President Donald Trump in 2016, said the two girls thought Warren was “nice” and said the candidate told them to tell their parents to vote for her for president. Michels, in fact, was so impressed by her conversation with Warren, she told her parents they should vote for the Massachusetts lawmaker in 2020.
After hearing her request, Michels’ parents explained to her their opposition to abortion and told her Warren is a pro-choice politician who favors expanding abortion access. So they instead suggested Michels and Billings donate the $10 from Warren to the group March for Life Education and Defense Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for pro-life legislation.
“We talked about the abortion part of things and said maybe we should donate money to stop abortion,” Dan Michels said, “and my daughter was all for that.”
Warren, for her part, has not specifically addressed the small donation to March for Life. On her website, though, she has advocated for the protection of “a woman’s right to choose,” arguing, “Extremist Republican lawmakers are trying to turn back the clock and deny women access to reproductive health care.”
She is in favor of codifying the rights granted under the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which essentially gave nationwide legal cover for abortion, and has endorsed the passing of federal laws “to preempt state efforts that functionally limit access to reproductive health care.”