GOP Stupidity Begins At Conception
It's your reproductive Sunday show rundown!
The Republican Party has once again found itself in a mess of its own doing.
After the Alabama Supreme Court decided that frozen embryos are people a little over a week ago, Republicans have been scrambling to walk it back as all in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures are now imperiled.
Let’s take a look at some of these failed attempts by GOP politicians on the Sunday shows!
Who Could Have Seen This Coming?
We begin on CNN’s “State Of The Union” with “pro-life” and compassionate humanitarian Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.
Sandwiched in between questions about Nikki Haley losing in the South Carolina primary and the Biden administration not letting Abbott install jigsaw murder traps along the southern border, host Dana Bash asked about Alabama’s IVF disaster.
Things got off to a rocky start.
BASH: Do you agree with the Alabama Supreme Court that embryos are human beings?
ABBOTT: Well, listen, obviously, there's some uncertainty lingering from this, but, candidly, let's go back to President Trump, because President Trump put out a statement on this that I think a lot of people agree with.
Ahhh, yes, trust the notoriously faithful to his word Donald Trump. It’s not like Trump appointed three Supreme Court Justices who reversed Roe v. Wade, which inevitably led to Alabama’s actions, or bragged about it. It’s not like we have blatant examples of Trump claiming to care about rights for people, only to actively govern away those protections.
But Abbott, following up on that ridiculous premise, showed how little he and his party have thought about IVF and the ramifications of “life begins at conception” policies.
BASH: Texas has one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country. Are you saying that families in Texas who are using IVF, have extra embryos that are frozen do not need to worry?
ABBOTT: Well, so you raise fact questions that are complex that I simply don't know the answer to.Let me give you a couple of examples. And that is, I have no idea mathematically the number of frozen embryos. Is it one, 10, 100, 1,000? […] What I don't know is, families who may have frozen embryos, what happens if they were done so that a mother could have a pregnancy, but after those embryos were frozen, the mother passes away? What happens then? What happens if, after the embryos are frozen, the mother and the husband, they get a divorce? […] These are very complex issues, where I'm not sure everybody has really thought about what all the potential problems are.
Yes, no one has thought about the “potential problem” or legal issues regarding a procedure that’s existed since 1978. You know, except the American Bar Association in 2015 or the New York Times in 2021 or any family law practice in the United States. It’s not like there was a decades-long very public battle over frozen embryos after a split involving “Modern Family” star Sofia Vergara.
Idiots like Greg Abbott (and Donald Trump) always like to say people “don’t know” or “haven’t thought of things” because they are ignorant fuckmooks who never did.
Thank goodness stupidity is not contagious or sexually transmitted.
Another Vice-Presidential Audition Tape
Florida Rep. Byron Donalds appeared on NBC’s “Meet The Press” with Kristen Welker.
Donalds’s segment began with him having to do that painful thing all Black conservatives all have to do: Find an excuse for and run cover for the racism in the Republican Party. After playing a clip of Trump equating being indicted numerous times with somehow getting some support from Black people, Donalds tried to co-opt justice reform rhetoric to excuse him.
DONALDS: Well, I think it’s in part of – it's part of it, Kristen. […] when you layer on the fact that, yes, this is political persecution […] this is something similar that Black people had to deal with – with the justice system themselves. […]
Republicans only acknowledge systemic racism exists when it’s to excuse racists. This is kind of like the way abusers co-opt “therapy speak,” except with social justice.
After trying to paint Trump as a political martyr, Donalds tried to dance around his previous comments on reproductive rights and the Alabama IVF decision. Did he fare better than Gov. Abbott?
WELKER: This week you said that you agreed with the [Alabama] Supreme Court's decision that embryos are children. […] Do you support IVF as it is practiced in the United States, which involves the production of embryos that are sometimes destroyed or even donated if they're unused?
DONALDS: Well, first, I do support IVF […] Number two, when the – when the MSNBC reporter asked me that question, I was in the middle of a hallway. I heard the tail end of it. I didn't hear about the Alabama ruling. […]
Oh, he only heard part of the question! Whom amongst us haven’t heard half a statement and accidentally advocated against reproductive rights? Let those who haven’t cast their stones!
Donalds ultimately did say he supports IVF, because it helps people “breed good families.” Because even when they’re trying to say something normal, Republicans come across as anti-social lunatics.
Donalds was also consistently inconsistent about his support for Ukraine aid without border funding, despite voting against a border funding bill and it seems it’s going to be part of the government funding fight.
WELKER: Are you willing to shut down the government over border security?
DONALDS: And I believe Joe Biden is willing to shut down it over border security.
WELKER: But what are you willing to do?
DONALDS: And like I said at CPAC a couple days ago.
WELKER: But congressman, what are you willing to do?
DONALDS: […] I'm willing to fund the government as long as our border is secure. […]
WELKER: […] would you vote to shut down the government if you did not see a border security plan in the package? Just yes or no.
DONALDS: I will not be voting for any funding if the border is not secured.
The GOP’s narcissistic ignorance and hypocrisy would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous.
Have a week.
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This whole "embryos are people too" conversation makes me galactically furious. Like exploding suns furious. As someone who had a good deal of trouble and some assistance conceiving the one and only child of my own, I can imagine the heartbreak and anxiety for these women going through IVF. Relatively speaking, what I had to go through to conceive is not even close to the rigors and expense of IVF, but it was still emotionally wrenching on a monthly basis and makes you feel like a failure when things don't work. And people want these children so badly if they're going to all this trouble and expense, my heart breaks for them.
That these white Xtian patriarchs think they know what's best for the rest of us is making me stabby, tbh. I hope every woman votes Dem in November. You want to tell us how to live, boys? Maybe we can have a thing or two to say about that.
I might have to go play with the election map for a bit, to make myself feel better.
So many Republicans have fallen out of the stupid tree hitting every branch on the way down, it's a wonder that the stupid tree is still standing