“The View” panel accused Republicans of being “afraid of” women using birth control methods and having careers Thursday.
The panel criticized the Miami-Dade County Public School district for rejecting two sex education textbooks intended to educate students on abortion and contraception. Co-host Whoopi Goldberg, citing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, suggested Republicans are seeking to ban contraception and possibly gay marriage.
“Is it just birth control they’re afraid of?” Goldberg asked. “Are they afraid of gay people, gay marriage? Are they afraid of women’s rights to control their body? What is the fear? What is going on?”
Co-host Joy Behar claimed Republican Minnesota lieutenant governor candidate Matt Birk warned women will have careers due to abortion. Birk spoke at the National Right to Life conference in June, criticizing pro-abortion activists for promoting the procedure by “telling women they should look a certain way, they should have careers.”
“They would like 1953 to come back,” Behar said. “When women were home with the kids and they went out to work and had three-martini lunches and the women stayed home, had the babies and didn’t bother anybody. That’s what they really want.”
Behar then claimed the textbooks teach children “how to avoid child abuse.” Co-host Sara Haines responded by saying she “unapologetically” teaches her children the proper names of body parts so that her children may better report potential sexual abuse, and so they have the proper knowledge about safe sex when they reach their teenage years. (RELATED: Ocasio-Cortez: Abortion Ban Is About Fundamentalists Trying To ‘Outlaw Sex’)
“I will not send my child blindly into a situation without the knowledge they need to do what they need to do to be safe,” Haines said.
Conservative guest co-host Lindsey Granger agreed that sex education should be properly taught in schools, noting that Human Reproduction and Disease Education is a requirement in the state of Florida.
Haines suggested parents can opt their children out of sex education due to religious beliefs, but they cannot “rob” the rest of the students from receiving sex education.
“This is science, people, this is like basic science,” Haines said.
Co-host Sunny Hostin said she experienced a “disconnect” when talking to her children about sex because she is a “repressed Catholic.”
Goldberg argued society’s interpretation of sex as being “filthy” leads young people to be curious.
“You don’t have to have sex if you don’t want to,” Goldberg said. “You have to start this conversation early. I know you don’t think that grade school kids are not experimenting, they are. They are. They’re touching, they’re feeling, they want to know. It’s up to you to help them not get the wrong idea and stay away from the ‘porn hubs.’ Because what you don’t want, is you don’t want them to think that is how you have sex.”