Sean Duffy (R-Not In Congress) Wants To Save All The Gay Fetuses

Duffy introduced the bill as his last act in Congress.

Back in August, Sean Duffy announced that he would be retiring from Congress, citing his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, complications with her pregnancy, and medical issues for their unborn ninth child. Given this, it's not surprising that he wants to leave a legacy, an enduring reminder of the kind of politician he was. This Monday, he officially resigned, but not before introducing a bill ( H.R. 442) to "protect the lives of unborn gay children" by making it illegal to abort a gay fetus.

Duffy, unsurprisingly, has a history of trying to derail LGBTQ rights — from opposing same-sex marriage to opposing laws barring employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The announcement of Duffy's bill comes on the heels of a recent study showing that there are some genetic markers that gay people are more likely to have than straight people. This study does not mean that a doctor can take your blood and tell you whether or not you're gay, or do genetic testing on your fetus and tell you whether or not it is gay either.

However, this is the kind of thing that people like Sean Duffy like to claim is a real thing, in order to portray people who support reproductive rights as monsters. The irony is that there is probably not a whole lot of overlap of people who are both so anti-gay that they would abort a child they thought was gay, and people who actually support abortion rights.

In a press release , Duffy stated:

"As science advances and genetic markers for sexual orientation are discovered, I believe it is vital we begin now to set ethical standards to protect the lives of unborn gay children. While reprehensible, we already see the use of genetic testing to terminate pregnancies based on the discovery of a genetic predisposition to an unwanted condition or character trait such as gender and physical/mental disability. Often these decisions are not made for any medical reason, but rather because of religious, cultural or personal views and preferences.

"I believe all children are entitled to love, acceptance, and, most importantly, a right to life, regardless of their sexual orientation. This legislation would send a powerful early signal regarding the serious repercussions of genetic testing for sexual orientation and will be the first line of defense against the termination of unborn babies based on the discovery of said traits. It is vital that unborn children be afforded protection from termination based on sexual orientation."

Yes. Rather than supporting some kind of legislation that would actually help actual LGBTQ people who are actually alive, Sean Duffy wants to do some legislation based on science that not only does not exist now, but might never exist, in order to protect the hypothetical gay fetuses of the future. Too bad he wasn't in office long enough to whip up some legislation on flying cars and time travel!

So far, no one else has signed onto support his bill, which means it could very likely lie there in limbo until someone else is brave enough to take up the mantle of denying abortions based on a form of genetic testing that does not even exist at the moment.

For the record, I fully encourage anyone who actually would abort a baby for being gay to take full advantage of legal abortion, because that kind of person should not only not be a parent to a gay child, they should not be a parent to any child. They really just should not reproduce.

This kind of thing is pure trolling. It provides an opportunity for someone like Duffy, who has spent a large chunk of his career fighting against gay rights, to smear abortion-rights activists as people who would literally kill gays and women for being gays and women, while he is the tolerant, all-loving one. And then the people who like to appear reasonable without ever actually thinking anything through will go "Well that seems fair, we can give him that," instead of pointing out that the reason why anyone gets a legal abortion is none of his (or anyone's) damn business. Which it isn't.

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