Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson asserted recently that abortion was not an issue of women’s rights, and that supporting a woman’s right to choose was like supporting slavery. Speaking at “The Gift of Life Banquet” fundraiser for First Choice Pregnancy Center in Las Vegas, Carson argued that the “culture of death” was accepted in America because of “peer pressure.”

“Someone has tried to make this into an issue of women’s rights,” the GOP hopeful told the crowd. “What about the baby? You know, it’s one of the most sacred relationships in the universe, a mother and that child inside of her. How have we become so distorted that we have managed to convince women that that baby inside of her is her enemy and that she has a right?”

Continuing with the same rhetoric, the retired neurosurgeon then likened unborn babies to slaves, saying that they are “jailed in their mothers’ bellies without anyone speaking for them and with their own mothers against them. And as if that wasn’t enough, when a mother chooses to have an abortion, the babies are then literally killed by white people. Does that sound familiar? Slaves were also imprisoned against their will, without anyone to speak up for them and were also killed by white people as they pleased.”

“What I personally don’t understand is how did we get this far?” Carson added. “It’s as though we’ve gone full circle, adopting slavery, then abolishing it, then now condoning it again. Well, excuse me for not wanting to allow the sins of our forefathers to become our own. You may call it what you like, but the fact to the matter is that the so-called right to choose is, in fact, a license to kill. And what scares me the most is that the majority of Americans have gotten too comfortable with it.”

“I think Abraham Lincoln is turning around in his grave right now,” Carson also said. “We must put a stop to such murderous practice immediately, or history will repeat itself. And to tell you the truth, we could really use some more American babies right now. You’re all witnessing what the Syrian refugees are going to do to this beautiful country. We need to fight fire with fire, I say.”