Greg Abbott Doing Terrible Job Of Ending All The Rape In Texas

Also: Republican thinks being a veterinarian makes him expert on human abortion.

Back in 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott responded to criticism about his state’s lack of an exception for rape or incest by saying that he was going to do everyone one better and just … stop all of the rape in Texas.

It will surely shock you to discover that this did not actually happen. In fact, a new report estimates that there have been 64,565 pregnancies from rape in anti-abortion states since Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade.

In the 14 states that implemented total abortion bans following the Dobbs decision, we estimated that 519 ,981 completed rapes were associated with 64,565 pregnancies during the 4 to 18 months that bans were in effect (Table 2). Of these, an estimated 5,586 rape-related pregnancies (9%) occurred in states with rape exceptions, and 58,979 (91%) in states with no exception, with 26,313 (45%) in Texas.

Those are some very big numbers.

The study also determined that rape exceptions were not especially helpful either, as it is still difficult to find anyone to actually perform the abortion.

Nonetheless, the large number of estimated rape-related pregnancies in abortion ban states compared with the 10 or fewer legal abortions per month occurring in each of those states indicates that persons who have been raped and become pregnant cannot access legal abortions in their home state, even in states with rape exceptions.

Well, I think we all knew that’s what was going to happen. Rape and incest exceptions don’t exist so much to actually help rape and incest survivors obtain abortions as much as they exist to make Republican politicians not look like complete monsters.

---

---

Seems Like This Guy Would Be More Helpful If We Had Heartworm?

Back when I was a kid, there was this one commercial in which a woman who was meant to be some kind of incredible ditz twirled her hair and said “And I don’t eat meat … because I’m a veterinarian.” Which, although the implication was that she didn’t know the word vegetarian, was not actually that stupid of a thing to say when you think about it. It stands to reason that someone who spends as much time around animals as a veterinarian does might not want to eat them. Being a veterinarian makes one an expert in animals.

But do you know what it does not make one an expert on? Abortions. At least abortions for human beings. And yet, Republican Wisconsin state Rep. Joel Kitchens recently got up in front of a crowd full of people during a debate on a 14-week abortion ban and claimed that his experience as a veterinarian did just that.

“You know, in my veterinary career, I did thousands of ultrasounds on animals, you know, determining pregnancy and that kind of thing,” Kitchens said. “So I think I know mammalian fetal development better than probably anyone here. And in my mind, there’s absolutely no question that’s a life, and I think the science backs me up on that.”

Narrator: “The science” did no such thing.

I am willing to graciously assume that Rep. Joel Kitchens knows more about how to treat kennel cough than I do. That he is better qualified to spay or neuter a golden retriever than I or anyone else who is not a veterinarian would be. But no, being a veterinarian does not make one an expert on human abortions, that is not a thing. If I were a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, I suppose I would gladly accept Rep. Kitchens’ authority on my reproductive goings-on. But as it stands, I think we will all take a hard pass on his expertise.

But Joel Kitchens was not the only person saying very stupid things at the anti-abortion hootenanny. State Rep. Ron Tusler — also a Republican — used the Bible to demonstrate that God was, in fact, very into forcing women to give birth whether or not it might kill them or otherwise adversely affect their health. His evidence? John the Baptist’s mom was 88 years old when she gave birth to him! The Virgin Mary was probably about 13 or 14! Abraham’s wife was 90 when she had a baby!

I don’t know that this demonstrates “God’s” thoughts and feelings about forcing women to give birth even if it could kill them so much as that the people who wrote the Bible were perhaps not the world’s greatest experts on human biology or aging.

Omnipotence does have its benefits. God — who never actually mentioned abortion outside of the time he gave Moses a recipe for it — would have known right from the start that these adolescents and senior citizens would survive their pregnancies.

You are probably thinking right now “Ugh! What is wrong with these men!?!” — and so now I will present you with the comic stylings of state Rep. Amanda Nedweski, also a Republican.

Rep. Nedweski explains that she is fine with abortion in cases of rape or incest, when it isn’t the woman’s fault, but that if it comes from consensual sex, she needs to be forced to have the baby because “personal responsibility.” After all, what is more responsible than having a child you neither want nor can afford?

We don’t send people to prison for having non-procreative sex (at least not anymore/for now). It is not a crime. Pregnancy is not a punishment. Children are not a punishment and it is deeply messed up and cruel to see them that way. If Amanda Nedweski so desperately wants to watch some wanton Jezebel be punished for her wicked ways and lack of personal responsibility, there are approximately 87,000 old movies with that very premise, including one literally called Jezebel. She doesn’t have to force anyone to give birth in order to scratch that itch.

---

---

Sean Hannity Can’t Believe Anyone Thinks Women Are Losing Their Right To Abortion Just Because They Are!

On Thursday night’s episode of Premiere Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show, Sean Hannity shared his thoughts on Vice President Kamala Harris’s recent, factually correct comments about how Republicans want to take away women’s right to abortion — a thing that about 95 percent of all GOP legislators are very open about.

But Hannity says that’s not true! Republicans — including those, we assume, in states that banned abortion with no exceptions — absolutely did not take anyone’s ability to have an abortion away. They just made it less convenient, is all!

Via Media Matters:

“Kamala Harris sticking to their demagogue, a demagoguing of abortion issue and saying, ‘the Supreme Court overturning the Roe decision took away a Constitutional right for women in America.’ That's not what it did at all. It allows the states to decide individually what they want in terms of the state standards for abortion. Nice try, but what she said is just false. On abortion rights, she said, ‘this is about taking freedoms away.’ Nobody's taking away anybody's right to an abortion. You know, it may not be as convenient as it once was because of where you live, but you're going to have access to abortion even, you know, Democrats' belief that you're going to have late term abortion, which is insane to me and infanticide to me.”

That is because you, Sean Hannity, are very stupid and apparently unaware that it is necessary for late-term abortion to be a decision between patient and doctor, not patient, doctor, and the state. Doctors need to be able to act quickly in emergency situations without worrying that they will lose their license or end up in prison because the patient just wasn’t quite septic enough for some legislator’s taste.

The rest is impossible to argue, on the grounds that it is very obvious, from all available information and legislation, that women are being denied abortions, on purpose, by Republican legislators.

Additionally, the man says “convenient” like these legislators are just throwing roadblocks everywhere to ensure that the people who get abortions are those who prove they really want one by taking days off of work and traveling for six hours to a state that allows it in order to get one. It’s not the fucking American Gladiators gauntlet, it is a medical procedure. Hope that helps!

---

---

Tennessee And Oklahoma Trying To Make ‘Abortion Trafficking’ A Thing

One of the big problems for states where abortion is banned is that those with the means can still go to other states where it is legal in order to get them. Some Texas counties have tried to combat this by barring people from using their roads to drive someone else out of state to have an abortion, so that anyone wishing to obtain one has to go by themselves.

On Monday, legislators in both Tennessee and Oklahoma introduced bills meant to charge those who drive minors to get abortions — even if they drive them to states where abortions are legal — with “abortion trafficking.” Both Tennessee’s SB1971 and Oklahoma’s SB1778 make this punishable by up to five years in prison.

SB1971 reads:

(a) An adult commits the offense of abortion trafficking of a minor if the adult recruits, harbors, or transports a pregnant unemancipated minor within this state for the purpose of:

(1) Concealing an act that would constitute a criminal abortion under § 39-15-213 from the parents or guardian of the pregnant unemancipated minor;

(2) Procuring an act that would constitute a criminal abortion under § 39- 15-213 for the pregnant unemancipated minor, regardless of where the abortion is to be procured; or

(3) Obtaining an abortion-inducing drug for the pregnant unemancipated minor for the purpose of an act that would constitute a criminal abortion under § 39-15-213, regardless of where the abortion-inducing drug is obtained.

(b) A violation of subsection (a) is a Class C felony.

(c) This section does not apply to the parents or legal guardian of an unemancipated minor.

(d) It is not a defense to a prosecution under this section that the pregnant minor consented to the actions in subsection

This isn’t just about punishing adults, it’s about punishing teenagers. This means that the children of forced birth wackos will not be able to seek the help of another trusted adult in their lives to take them to get an abortion. It ignores the fact that there are kids out there who are terrified of what their parents will do to them if they find out they’ve had sex or gotten pregnant and terrified that their parents will force them to give birth against their will. That’s horrifying. I’m sorry, but it should not be a “parental right” to force anyone to give birth against their will.

We understand, as a people, in practically every other context, that parents are not given full rights to do what they want with their children’s bodies. They cannot legally beat them, they cannot legally molest them and, when it comes to medical care? Children have a right to it regardless of their parents’ personal religious beliefs. If a kid’s parents are Jehovah’s Witness and that kid needs a blood transfusion to live? That kid is getting a transfusion whether the parents like it or not. You want to faith heal your kid to death because that’s your special religious belief? You may very well end up in prison.

No matter how old anyone is, they have a right to bodily autonomy. They have the right to say no. And that needs to include the right to say no to giving birth.