Anti-Abortion Leader Emerges as White Nationalist

Anti-abortion groups are distancing themselves from a prominent writer, activist and thought leader in the movement who has leaned into white nationalism since Donald Trump’s election.

Kristen Walker Hatten, former vice president of the anti-abortion group New Wave Feminists and a contributor to The Dallas Morning News, has spoken at universities and events around the country about the need for mainstream feminism to embrace women who oppose abortion rights. She has written articles for Live Action News, the organization behind the heavily edited “sting” videos that inspired Republicans in Congress to investigate Planned Parenthood, and gained media attention in early 2017 when New Wave Feminists was ousted from a partnership with the Women’s March.

Hatten wrote in late 2016 that she found Trump to be so “creepy, gross and tacky” and such a “repugnant chauvinist” during his campaign that she quit the internet for a while to avoid reading about him. But after he won, something changed. Hatten began sharing white supremacist content on social media. She self-identified on Twitter as alt-right and “ethnonationalist” ― the same term used by white nationalist icon Richard Spencer. She mused on Facebook that immigrant “invaders” are replacing white Europeans in their own countries, and shared a post imploring Trump to grant “asylum” to white South Africans.

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“I admit to being racist by today’s standards, but I also think almost everyone is racist by today’s standards,” she wrote. “Is it racist to live in a majority white neighborhood? Send your kids to majority white schools? When I was a kid ‘racism’ meant hatred for another race and/or acting on that hatred. Now you’re a racist if you touch a black person’s hair because you think it’s pretty.”

Hatten added that while she is proud to be white, she does not identify as a white nationalist or a white supremacist because she believes all races have a right to their own homelands.

“I do see that Europe and the US are becoming… well, not European,” she wrote. “This concerns me not because I hate anyone, but for the same reason Japan would be concerned if the Japanese were becoming a minority in Japan. No people should be excited to become a minority in their homeland. It is contrary to human nature. I wouldn’t expect it of any race and I don’t think it should be expected of whites.”

Hatten’s views present a problem for the anti-abortion movement as it continues to jockey for mainstream acceptance and tries to distance itself from right-wing extremists. {snip} The kinship isn’t hard to understand: Both are movements of the status quo, dedicated to preserving a white patriarchal order.

Today, white supremacists emboldened by Trump’s election are a lot more explicit about their political fellow-traveling. Neo-Nazis have been showing up at March for Life rallies around the country. A Rewire analysis found that the Family Research Council, a powerful evangelical anti-abortion group, is also deeply influential among white supremacists on social media.

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The Dallas Morning News also told HuffPost it will no longer publish anything by Hatten in light of her views.

Herndon-De La Rosa said Hatten’s journey to the far right appears to have been directly influenced by Trump’s election.

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Tensions between Hatten and Herndon-De La Rosa grew more pronounced earlier this month, when the latter wrote a Facebook post drawing attention to some of the things Hatten has shared on social media. Hatten responded with a long post defending herself and her ethnonationalist beliefs, but Facebook removed the post because it violated the site’s terms.