Minutes after delivering a speech in which she declared that leadership can change minds about abortion, conservative entrepreneur and former business executive Carly Fiorina said she is taking a close look at joining the Republican race for president.

“I am seriously considering it,” Fiorina said today in an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal. “I think I bring a very different experience set. I’m not a professional politician, and I think professional politicians are a relatively modern invention — and not a particularly good one.”

She added:

I think I’d bring a different perspective and a different voice. I’ll be exploring over these next couple months: Can we build the right support? Can we build the right financial resources? Can we build the right team?

Earlier, Fiorina, 60, spoke about the nature of leadership during her keynote address at an event at The Heritage Foundation organized in conjunction with Thursday’s 42nd annual March for Life.

“I think professional politicians are a relatively modern invention–and not a particularly good one,” @CarlyFiorina says.

Called “Welcoming Every Life,” the speech and panel discussion afterward focused on rescuing more unborn children with severe disabilities from abortion. Heritage and National Review Institute co-sponsored the program, which also featured pro-life activists Mark Bradford, Dan LaHood and Charmaine Yoest.

>>> Commentary: Women Overwhelmingly Support 20-Week Abortion Ban

Fiorina spoke about how different her life would have been had her own husband’s mother heeded advice not to give birth to him. She also recalled how, at 23 and in Washington, D.C., she helped a good friend get an abortion.

“The hypocrisy of liberal positions is shocking to me,” Fiorina said, adding:

I have lived for more than a decade in the state of California and there, lives and livelihoods have been routinely destroyed because of the extreme lengths that liberals have gone to protect the lives of fish, of frogs and indeed, yes, even of flies.  Liberals may not know when life begins, but surely even they regard human life is worth more than a fly’s?

>>> Watch Fiorina’s Speech and the Panel Discussion

Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co. from 1999 to 2005, is also known to many Americans for mounting a vigorous challenge in 2010 for Democrat Barbara Boxer’s U.S. Senate seat representing California. She lost by 10 points.

Since Thanksgiving, Fiorina — now a Virginia resident — has become increasingly comfortable talking about a White House bid, hiring related staff while ruling out another run for Senate in California.

She currently is chairman of the nonprofit Good360, which steers corporate surplus to charities, and also heads UnlockingPotential, a political action committee designed to engage women in public life in new ways.

A breast cancer survivor, she is one of only a few women mentioned among potential GOP hopefuls to go up against the supposed Democratic front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the 2016 presidential race.

Fiorina’s speech dwelled on the potential and preciousness of every human life – and that gave her a way to talk about leadership too.

“Leadership has nothing to do with position or title or power,” Fiorina said, and its “highest calling” is to “unlock the potential in others.” She said:

I have learned over the course of my life that every person has potential, that everyone has God-given gifts.  And in truth, most people have far more potential than they realize. I’ve also learned something about leadership. Leadership differs fundamentally from management. Management is the production of acceptable results within known constraints and conditions, whereas leadership is to change those constraints and conditions. Leadership is the act of changing the order of things.  And therefore the highest calling of leadership is to unlock potential in others.

After her speech, Fiorina told The Daily Signal that she is hopeful public perspective will shift more toward a pro-life perspective and discomfort with late-term abortions. She said science and technology show that unborn babies dream and feel pain at five months, and surgeons can save the lives of unborn babies under 19 weeks.
 

“We need to continue to articulate our principles in human terms, in scientific terms, in compassionate terms,” Fiorina said in the interview. “[W]e’re moving in the right direction, and I think the polls would support that.”

She is hopeful especially because of younger Americans.

“Young people are un-amazed by what technology can do,” she told The Daily Signal. “I think they’re attuned to the miracle of science and technology and … are open-minded about people who are different [because of prenatal conditions] than they are.”

Young adults also are skeptical about “the pro-abortion lobby,” she said, because its political message is “unbelievably strident and extreme” in advocating a right to abortion at any time during a pregnancy, for whatever reason.

“We gather here because we know that the life we save may make all the difference in the lives of others,” @CarlyFiorina says.

She concluded her speech by drawing a comparatively reasonable picture of pro-life activists who will descend Thursday on Washington for the March for Life:

We gather here in Washington for the 42nd year not because we are stupid or because we are extreme or because we are uncaring. We gather here because we know that women and their unborn children deserve our respect, they deserve our empathy and they deserve our support.  We gather here because we know that the life we save may make all the difference in the lives of others. We gather here because we know that no one of us is any better than any other one of us. We gather here because we know that every human life has potential and every human life is precious.

This report has been modified to specify that Fiorina is a resident of Virginia.

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