Fiorina: Conservatives are ‘winning’ on abortion

Potential GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina told conservatives Thursday that they are “winning” on the issue of abortion and urged them to press their case to the public in 2016.

“I think it’s so important that we engage in persuasive conversations, conducted in an empathetic and reasonable tone,” Fiorina said at a gala hosted by the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List.

“We are winning on this issue and so we have to keep going,” Fiorina added.

{mosads}Fiorina said she is confronted “all the time” by people who condemn the Republican Party’s platform on abortion but know nothing about Democrats’ stance.

“You can win with Democrats and moderates as a pro-life candidate,” she said, pointing to her own Senate run in California.

The gala, which was attended by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell among other lawmakers, also recognized Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) for her support of the “pro-life” movement during her 2014 Senate campaign.

Ernst said she was proud that she maintained her opposition to abortion even as the race grew close. 

The Iowa senator said she was warned, “Don’t talk about life.”

“But you know what? I did. I talked about life,” she said to applause.

Both women touted the anti-abortion movement, which raised more than $16 million in the last election cycle.

Fiorina avoided the more fiery remarks on abortion that she gave earlier on Thursday during a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.

During the event Thursday morning, she accused Democrats of supporting a platform that says “any abortion, any time, at any point in a woman’s pregnancy for any reason to be paid for by taxpayers and now, some would like to add, to be performed by a non-doctor.”

“A policy succinctly summarized by [Sen.] Barbara Boxer [D-Calif.] as, ‘It’s not a life until it leaves the hospital.’ How do you feel about this? Women are horrified by that,” she said, taking a stab at her onetime rival on the campaign trail.