Ben Shapiro Suggests Older People Dying Of COVID-19 Is 'Tragic,' But Also Not So Bad

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Conservative commentator and abortion opponent Ben Shapiro once said he wouldn’t even consider aborting Baby Hitler if he had the chance.

But based on an interview Shapiro had on Tuesday with political commentator Dave Rubin, maybe your grandma’s life isn’t that worthy of saving.

Shapiro noted that one of the effects of lifting stay-at-home orders in different states is that more people will get COVID-19, but “nobody just wants to say the obvious truth.”

According to Shapiro, that “obvious truth” is that everyone is making “actuarial deductions about what are the costs” in human lives of lifting lockdown orders.

“If somebody who is 81 dies of COVID-19, that is not the same thing as somebody who is 30 dying of COVID-19,” Shapiro said (ignoring the fact that 30-year-olds can and do die from the virus as well). “If this were killing children, everyone would be in lockdown forever. That’s the reality.”

Meanwhile, “If grandma dies in a nursing home at age 81, that’s tragic and it’s terrible; also, the life expectancy in the United States is 80,” Shapiro said.

You can see his comments here.

Ben Shapiro: “If somebody who is 81 dies of COVID-19, that is not the same thing as somebody who is 30 dying of COVID-19…If grandma dies in a nursing home at age 81, that’s tragic and it’s terrible, also the life expectancy in the United States is 80” pic.twitter.com/L2UJi95OUN

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) April 29, 2020

HuffPost reached out to Shapiro, but no one immediately responded.

However, Twitter users noticed that Shapiro’s comment seemed to contradict his previous statements about the value of human life.

Repro advocates: Pregnant folks should be able to make their own choices.

Ben Shapiro: MURDERERS!!!

People: We need to take steps to help older folks who are vulnerable in this crisis.

Ben Shapiro: Listen, there’s a calculus for valuing “life”. In this essay, I will…

— Charlotte Clymer 🏳️‍🌈 (@cmclymer) April 29, 2020

Ben Shapiro, 2017: “A first-trimester fetus has moral value… more value than just a cluster of cells. If left to its natural processes, it will grow into a baby. The real question is, where do you draw the line?”

Ben Shapiro, 2020: Your grandmother should be dead already. https://t.co/kRs9EbiCqu

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) April 29, 2020

Remember when Ben Shapiro said he was so pro-life he wouldn’t kill baby Hitler? https://t.co/vvN6os6fDk

— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) April 29, 2020

the idea that bureaucrats were going to be making decisions about the value of human life based on actuarial tables, in the form of “death panels,” is something that ben shapiro was very, very against not that long ago https://t.co/SaJar159nO

— Christopher Hooks (@cd_hooks) April 29, 2020

Some people were surprised it took Shapiro so long to get to this opinion.

I have to admit I thought it would take longer than a month for the right to reach the point of “the useless old people must die to give the young Übermenschen elbow room.” https://t.co/Eed8T4IOue

— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) April 29, 2020

Remember this next time they claim “All Lives Matter” or that they are “Pro Life.”

They never believed that. Now they’re just saying the quiet part loud.#COVID19 https://t.co/f2e2lhfbkv

— Qasim Rashid for Congress (@QasimRashid) April 29, 2020

People like this love to use words like “tragic” and “terrible” hastily, and only while on their way to a different destination, as if they’re glancing briefly at actual human feeling while speeding past it in a limo with the windows rolled up. https://t.co/dw5T4MAzEn

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) April 29, 2020

Some people tried to gently suggest that it might actually be possible to give COVID-19 patients decent medical treatment.

What if I told you that it didn’t need to be a choice and in South Korea they can save both the 80year olds and the 30 year olds

— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@MollyJongFast) April 29, 2020

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