Glenn Youngkin Pretty Sure His 15-Week Abortion Ban Will Dazzle All The Swing Voters
We'll tell you why it won't and more, in this week's repro roundup!
After several major defeats, even in such red states as Kansas, Republicans have learned that abortion bans don’t do well at the ballot box. They’ve learned that voters think they are too extreme. So now, Republicans like Glenn Youngkin of Virginia are pushing for bans they think would sound “reasonable” to voters and trying to characterize Democrats as being the “extreme” ones.
According to The New York Times, if Youngkin’s strategy is effective and “halts Democratic momentum on the issue,” it could serve as a model for other Republicans and their abortion bans in the future.
Via The New York Times:
Legislative races across the state will offer a decisive test of a strategy led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who has united Republicans behind a high-profile campaign in support of a ban on abortion after 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. The party calls it a “common sense” position, in contrast to Democrats, who it says “support no limits.”
I actually don’t think it will be the big winner Youngkin and others think it will be. That is not because I am an optimist — in fact, I’m usually very much of a pessimist when it comes to these things. But I also think that now that people have seen the way the abortion ban sausage is made, any ban is going to be a huge turnoff.
There was one thing that the Dobbs decision did that decades of abortion rights activism somehow couldn’t — truly drive it home just how necessary those rights are to those whose wanted pregnancies have gone wrong. It was a lot easier for some to support restrictions when they were largely under the impression that those who were getting later-in-pregnancy abortions were selfish, lazy, flaky whores who were “using abortion as birth control” and couldn’t be bothered to get one early on, probably because they were just too busy screwing the whole town. It was a lot easier for them to say “Oh, that’s reasonable and fair,” without giving it much thought. (Personally not sure why anyone would think that someone who supposedly “flaked” on getting an abortion early on should be a parent or even be pregnant, but that’s just me.)
It’s not easy anymore. People are much more aware now that when you restrict abortion, you are not just punishing some imaginary evil whores who need to be taught a lesson, you are forcing people like Miranda Michel of Texas to go through months and months of pregnancy just to give birth to conjoined twins with a zero percent chance at viability.
They are more aware of the fact that, even if “exceptions” are made, they lead to doctors waiting until the last minute to provide treatment, in fear that cases are not “extreme” enough to make a termination legal. They are also aware of the fact that ob-gyns are fleeing these states for that reason.
Meanwhile, the Right has been unable to produce the kind of cathartic narratives that might make some feel like the risk to those with dangerous pregnancies were worth it in the end. There have not really been any stories of fallen women and slatterns who, by being forced to bear children against their will, found Jesus, turned their lives around and found true joy in motherhood. They’ve got nothing, and repeatedly claiming the “common sense” position, when everyone has already seen how utterly nonsensical and harmful these bans are, is not the convincing gambit they think it is.
Creepy Travel Bans Are Becoming A Hot Trend In Texas
A while back, one Texas town decided to ban those seeking abortions from using its roads to get to New Mexico to have one — and that very terrible idea is, unfortunately, catching on. This week, Lubbock County instituted its own ban following the same model.
Like the state’s original abortion ban, the law seeks specifically to punish people who help those seeking an abortion by driving them to another state to have one, and relies on nosy neighbors and abusive exes to file lawsuits against them for doing so.
Lubbock County Judge Curtis Parrish, the county’s top elected official, admitted that the ordinance “has legal problems” but also claimed that “this ordinance, however, does not have a problem with its intent or the intent of those who are passionate about this.”
Aw! They have good intent! And they’re passionate! They’re just so excited to ruin people’s lives that “legal problems” shouldn’t really matter, right? Is that how things work?
Mike Johnson — Unsurprisingly Gross About Abortion
Newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson is terrible in myriad ways, and it should come as no surprise that he is also terrible about abortion. In an op-ed response to the Terri Schiavo situation (in which he also had bad opinions), Johnson referred to abortion as a “holocaust.”
In the piece, published by The Shreveport Times, Johnson also wrote, “The prevailing judicial philosophy is no different than Hitler’s. Because the life of an unborn child (or a disabled Terri Shiavo [sic], or the elderly and infirm) may be difficult or inconvenient or even costly to society now means it can be terminated.”
To refer to Terri Schiavo, whom you may recall was entirely braindead, as “disabled” is also a bit of a stretch.
He also claimed, more recently, that forcing women to give birth against their will is simply sound economic policy.
He explained that legalized abortion “gave constitutional cover to the elected killing of unborn children in America, period. You think about the implications of that on the economy. We’re all struggling here to cover the bases of social security and medicare and medicaid and all the rest. If we had all those able bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this.”
He’s gonna be a real prize, for sure.
More Abortion News!
The Georgia Supreme Court handed a victory to anti-abortion creeps this week, voting 6-1 to keep the state’s six-week abortion ban in effect while a judge considers legal challenges to the law. [Atlanta Journal Constitution]
Feminist artist Juanita McNeely passed away this week at the age of 87. In 1969, McNeely had an illegal abortion in New York and later documented the harrowing experience in her 1969 painting Is It Real? Yes, It Is!, which has been permanently on display at the Whitney since 2022.
“For over six decades, McNeely addressed themes of bodily sovereignty, liberation, pain and resilience through her work,” New York gallery James Fuentes, which has represented McNeely since 2020, said in a statement. “McNeely used her art to convey the extreme physicality and movement of the human figure, informed by her personal observations and experiences of sexism, abortion and infirmity.” [ArtNews.com]
"He explained that legalized abortion “gave constitutional cover to the elected killing of unborn children in America, period. You think about the implications of that on the economy. We’re all struggling here to cover the bases of social security and medicare and medicaid and all the rest. If we had all those able bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this.”
I'm sorry, women should be forced to give birth so that their children can become your wage slaves?
That's literally what you're saying.
That rape exception is fucked up, because they want you to report the rape before you get the abortion. Many women do not want to do that, for numerous reasons including a valid skepticism about the police and the judicial system doing the right thing and not just putting them through more trauma.