Michigan secretary of state candidate says abortion is ‘far more wicked than slavery’

Adrian Cole

Kristina Karamo allegedly threatened to kill herself and her two daughters during a marital dispute, according to court filings.

Michigan candidate for secretary of state, Kristina Karamo, discussed a series of bizarre and extreme views she holds in a 40-minute interview on the David J. Harris, Jr. Show last week. 

In the interview, Karamo, a political newcomer and one-time community college instructor, didn’t back down from similar positions she had expressed during her campaign, especially her views on abortion.

“It’s wicked. It’s the most wicked thing ever. It’s far more wicked than slavery,” Karamo said. “And David, the reason why I say it’s far more wicked than slavery — because you and I are evidence that the slaves, many slaves, survived — aborted children don’t survive because that’s the whole premise is to kill them. And so when we enter into a point in society that murdering other people is permissible to make my life better, then that’s human sacrifice.”

If Karamo defeats Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson this November, she will become the state’s chief election official.

Last week, Jezebel reported that Karamo had threatened to kill herself and her children during a marital dispute with her ex-husband, Adom Karamo. He alleged in the court filings that when he brought up the issue of divorce several years ago, she had attempted to wrest control of the vehicle carrying them and their two daughters, and said, “Fuck it, I’ll kill us all.”

He claimed in the court documents that she had threatened to kill herself and the children multiple times throughout their marriage.

Karamo denied the charges over the weekend, saying that her ex-husband was leveraging her public role to improve his custody arrangement with their daughters.

Karamo attempted to explain her view equating abortion with human sacrifice by referencing the Canaanites, an ancient civilization that the Old Testament depicts worshipping false idols:

“My opponents, they’re like, ‘Kristina called abortion human sacrifice.’ It is! You’re murdering your child so you can have a better life. What’s the difference? When you look at scripture, when you look at the Canaanites, or when you look, people who worship Baal or Moloch, why did they kill their kid? They didn’t sacrifice their kid to Baal or Moloch because, you know, ‘I think this just would be fun.’ No, they were hoping that Baal or Moloch would give them something and make their life better. Same concept. You go into a clinic, you kill your kid because you hope that it will make your life better. It’s no different.”

She then suggested that people in power obtained their positions by aborting their children.

“The fact of the matter is, it’s a whole lot of women and men in positions of power and they were able to skirt around parenthood because they killed their kid. Their success is standing in the blood of their dead children, and people like you, people like me make them face that reality. That’s why they can’t stand us.”

In Michigan, Karamo claimed, the ballot initiative to amend the constitution to enshrine abortion rights would legalize abortion up until birth. 

This is false. 

The Reproductive Freedom For All initiative would require the state to regulate abortion after fetal viability. Last week, however, the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked in a party-line 2-2 vote preventing the initiative from going on the ballot in November. The issue will go before the state supreme court.

Karamo even claimed that if abortion rights were enshrined in Michigan’s state constitution, pedophiles would be able to “get away with their crimes” by forcing their victims to get an abortion without their parent’s consent:

“Even in Michigan, we have an initiative they’re trying to put in our state’s constitution to make abortion a constitutional right in Michigan, where they will be able to get abortions up until birth. You have minors who will be able to get abortions. And think about it, without parental consent. So a 13-year-old girl can go get an abortion and her mother not know about it. Do you know all the pedophiles who will be able to get away with their crimes just by taking their young victims and forcing them to get an abortion? It’s just awful.”

As Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel made clear recently, contradicting claims by Karamo and other Republicans, the state only saw two abortions in 2021 that took place after 28 weeks of gestation, and both cases involved a “life-threatening medical emergency.”

“This notion that women wait until late in pregnancy to seek abortions … is simply not factual,” Nessel said. “When these late-term abortions happen, it’s because something has gone terribly wrong in the pregnancy, and that’s not a position anyone ever wants to be in.”

In the interview, Karamo also referred to abortion and medical treatment of transgender youth as an “attack on the family.”

“If I would have grown up now, they would try to convince me that I was transgender when I was really just a tomboy. And then I would have been sterilized and all kinds of stuff, and never have been able to be blessed with being a mother,” Karamo said.

She also attacked public education that does not teach Christian doctrine. She has in the past referred to public schools as “indoctrination camps,” and said in the interview that “one of the biggest frauds perpetrated on our society is Darwinism. It’s absolute garbage.”

Jacob Neiheisel, a political science professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, told the American Independent Foundation that while this level of religious rhetoric in politics isn’t new, it is different.

“Rhetoric of this nature,” Neiheisel said, “might reflect something of a shift within certain religious communities from an orientation focused on salvation towards an apocalyptic vision in which people of faith are going to need to fight a battle here on Earth against the forces of evil (forces which, conveniently, can be pitched as political opponents).”

This stype of apocalyptic political rhetoric is growing more popular, Neiheisel added, “possibly for purely functional reasons — it is a lot easier to mobilize people if they think that the stakes are high.”

Susan Tabor, a former Republican state representative, recently called Karamo “unhinged.” She has called out other Michigan Republicans for their extremism following the 2020 election.

“The Michigan GOP has devolved into a party of extremists and conspiracy theorists. The nominations of Tudor Dixon and Kristina Karamo make this clear,” Tabor wrote in the Detroit Metro Times.

Karamo concluded last week’s interview by discussing a conspiracy theory circulating in far-right groups claiming that liberal billionaire and philanthropist George Soros is behind a plot to take over the country by working to help elect Democratic secretaries of state.

She then spoke at length about witnessing voter fraud as a poll watcher during the 2020 election, which she said was what first prompted her to run for office. A Republican-led Senate committee in Michigan investigated claims of fraud in the 2020 election and found nothing.

A recent EPIC-MRA statewide poll put Benson ahead of Karamo 44-38% among likely voters, with a 4-percentage-point margin of error.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.