Charlie Kirk Championed Human Life. His Opponents Mock His Death
Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk, who championed the pro-life movement and the rights of preborn babies, was shot and killed by an assassin on Sept. 10. Kirk “stood as a resolute defender of the most vulnerable among us—the preborn,” Students for Life of America noted in a tribute to him.
The national pro-life group said Kirk helped call on President Donald Trump to defund Planned Parenthood. Earlier this year, Students for Life also honored Kirk with its “Defender of Life” award. During his speech, the conservative leader explained why he fought for life on college campuses, even though it would be much easier to remain “indifferent” on abortion.
“Why are we involved in this?” Kirk asked. “Because we serve a God, and we are not Him, and we are all made in the image of that Creator.”
“And so fight with joy, with whimsy, encourage your fellow warriors who might be silent on campus,” Kirk urged attendees at the National Pro-Life Summit.
Kirk followed his own advice, calmly, but passionately, discussing the issue of abortion even during heated discussions on campus, as seen in compilation videos.
Unfortunately, while Charlie Kirk was willing to engage his opponents in open debate, many of them were too eager to excuse or celebrate the assassination of a human being, father, and husband. MSNBC commentator Matthew Dowd was one of the first to rush in to blame Kirk for getting shot.
“He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups,” Dowd said soon after Kirk was shot but before he died. “And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.”
(He was soon after fired by MSNBC.)
Countless doctors, nurses, social workers, and teachers have celebrated Kirk’s death, demonstrating a toxic culture primed to applaud the demise of its supposed political enemies. “In the hours after Kirk’s assassination, young people flooded the internet with hateful rhetoric justifying an innocent man’s death,” the Free Press reports. “‘Lol’ and the fire emoji trended on Bluesky. A TikTok user posted a video of himself dancing in the streets with a megaphone and singing, ‘We got Charlie in the neck.’”
Charlie Kirk understood that all lives matter, no matter their age or whether they were inside or outside of the womb. His detractors should show similar respect for Kirk, whose life mattered just as much as theirs, mine, or yours.
About the Author
Matt Lamb is an associate editor for The College Fix and a contributor to Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He also works as a reporter for LifeSiteNews. He previously worked for Students for Life Action, Students for Life of America, and Turning Point USA.
I feel grieved that Charlie Kirk was killed and I have deep compassion for his family and friends. But “champion of human life”? I don’t think so.
The best I can say about Kirk is that he was selective about which humans deserved to be “championed,” making his rhetoric suspicious and cynical. He did not champion the lives of refugees, Muslims, blacks or feminists and he actively encouraged others to disparage and discriminate against them. Here is just a small sample of his views:
“Black women do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
“We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to a great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilization.”
And finally, as the grandmother of a 5 year old who just had her first “active shooter drill” in the Catholic school she attends in California, I find this Charlie Kirk view particularly abhorrent and sickening: “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”
I’m sorry he had to die to prove how ridiculous this belief is.
I just came back here and discovered that only half of my comment came through.
The rest is as follows:
Central to Charlie Kirk’s most profoundly held faith was the existence of a loving God. I am sure he was sincere in his beliefs. He worked tirelessly to communicate them, especially to young people (especially men). His antipathy for abortion and his desire to protect the smallest of God’s creatures seemed genuine, if limited. But his stand on gun control (in which some people, often children) may have to be sacrificed to preserve our freedoms is in direct conflict with his abortion stand in which no one’s greater good can be seen as a justification for killing a child.
Further to this belief is the conviction that “. . .we are all made in the image of that Creator.”
This is where his views seem muddled to me. Are refugees not made in the image of God? Are blacks somehow exempt from that glory? Are women lesser versions of the full Divine image?
Charlie Kirk was very young and one can only speculate now on how he might have tempered his message with maturity and deeper understanding. But this is precisely the point: *NO ONE* can say who is expendable and who is precious.
Because we are all children of God: the stranger, the homeless, the one with whom we have zero in common.
The assassin had a gun. In a sane country with sensible gun control, he would never have been able to procure it. The irony that Charlie Kirk died at his hands is something we would all do well to ponder on.
Jo McGowan,
How much of what you present is taken out of context?
The most telling quote in Lamb’s essay is this: ‘We got Charlie in the neck.’”
The shooter was an experienced rifleman using a scope. Mr. Kirk was literally a sitting duck. He wasn’t moving around the stage; he was seated, fielding questions. The shooter could have aimed for his victim’s heart and made the kill shot, he could have put a bullet between the eyes. But he aimed at the throat, which has the voice box. This is the crux of the issue: that in order to make your point it is now acceptable to switch out debate for murder.
You write: “The assassin had a gun. In a sane country with sensible gun control, he would never have been able to procure it. The irony that Charlie Kirk died at his hands is something we would all do well to ponder on.” You’re suggesting there’s ‘poetry’ to it. I suggest you ponder that.
I live in NYC, which has very strict gun laws, so people are being stabbed to death, as well as shot. What Mr. Kirk was saying about guns is what a lot of people have said before him, that if you make guns illegal for everyone, only the bad guys will have guns.
I was very disappointed reading Matt Lamb’s commentary. I agree with Jo McGowan 100%. I thank her for sharing her thoughts and expressing them so well.