MI GOP Gov. Hopeful Wants To Help Child Rape Victims, By Forcing Them To Give Birth
She's a peach.
Since last month, Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been hard at work trying to protect abortion access, even asking the state's supreme court to find that the state's constitution guarantees a right to it.
Donald Trump's pick Tudor Dixon, who is a human woman and not a hedge fund or pharmaceutical company, is the current Republican frontrunner for getting her ass handed to her by Whitmer. As such, she is already racking up a number of impressively ridiculous statements about abortion. While some Republicans still favor rape and incest exceptions, Dixon does not, and appears incredibly excited about the idea of rape and incest victims, children in particular, being forced to give birth against their will. This is not just because she believes life begins at conception, though she does believe that. She also thinks forced birth solves crimes.
You might say she's lost her head ( I'm sorry ).
Dixon explained this, and her opposition to what Gov. Whitmer is trying to do, at a recent campaign event.
During a conversation about a proposed ballot referendum this year that would guarantee accessible abortion in the state, Dixon said that doing so would create “a safe haven for any type of predator out there.”
“If you’re a predator there’s nothing you like more than abortion. And if you can get a girl an abortion without her parents knowing you can keep hurting her,” Dixon said at a meet-and-greet at Na-Lar Farms last week.
“So we have to make sure we protect people from predators in this state. We cannot let this constitutional amendment be passed and give predators a chance to keep preying on young women,” she added.
So, first of all, in the state of Michigan, anyone under the age of 18 must get either parental consent for an abortion, or they must go to court to obtain a waiver. Second, why the hell would this hypothetical "child predator" be going through official legal abortion channels, running the risk of someone at some point asking some questions? Third, even on the off chance that this genius child predator mastermind pulls all of this off, we are still talking about forcing children whose bodies have already been violated to have their bodies violated again by the government, for the sole reason that them having an abortion would make Tudor Dixon and those like her real sad. You know, because they just care so much about children.
This is not the first time she's presented this theory.
In another interview with internet talk-show host Charlie LeDuff earlier this month , LeDuff challenged Dixon with a hypothetical, worst-case scenario: a 14-year-old who got pregnant as a result of incest by an uncle.
Dixon responded, “Perfect example.”
She went on to outline her rationale on why that hypothetical teen should be required to carry the pregnancy to term, arguing that the means of conception shouldn’t matter in how the law defines a life. “A life is a life for me. That's how it is,” she said.
Dixon added that in that hypothetical scenario, there’s a concern for “protecting that guy, and we’ve got to get those guys in jail.”
In another interview on the Guy Gordon Show this month, Dixon argued that access to abortion pills would allow child sexual abusers to hide victims’ pregnancies with little scrutiny. The Biden administration has ordered that abortion pills remain available by mail for any individual to take from the comfort of their home.
“There are dangers with these things. We can’t let traffickers or predators have these pills that hide that there is a child,” Dixon said.
Because there's nothing child traffickers would hate than there being more children.
Logistically, there is absolutely no scenario in which this theory makes any kind of sense. Would Dixon allow a child rape victim to have an abortion if they were able to arrest the rapist first? I'm guessing not. Does she think you can't do a paternity test until the child is born? Because you can do a paternity test at eight weeks. Paternity testing can be also done on an aborted fetus and was in fact just done to determine the identity of the man who raped the 10-year-old Ohio girl who traveled to Indiana to get an abortion. There is no need whatsoever to force a 10-year-old child rape victim to carry a child to term, and require her parents to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for maternity care and labor and delivery, just to determine the identity of her assailant.
Unless Tudor Dixon was planning on footing those bills herself?
Even in the case of the rapist hypothetically having access to abortion pills, this is ridiculous. Clearly, Dixon has either forgotten or is unaware that safe and legal abortions are not the only way to terminate a pregnancy. In the event this hypothetical child predator gets a child pregnant and does not have access to abortion pills, what's he gonna do? Just say "Welp, guess I'm caught now. And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you crazy Republicans!?" Would this be because, although he'd rape a child, he's just too honorable and decent to try illegally terminate the pregnancy himself in a less safe and gentle way? That's a bridge too far for our imaginary genius child predator here?
What if the guy decides he likes the idea of a pregnancy? What if he decides he wants to be the next Ariel Castro? What if the idea of not only forcing a someone to have sex with him, but also forcing them to give birth to his child really does it for him? After all, rape is a crime of power.
I'm not necessarily saying that would be a thing, but I'm also not the one saying we should build our reproductive rights policies based on what hypothetical predators might hypothetically do. The only thing we know for a fact here is that people — children, adults, whomever — are going to be forced to gestate and give birth, forced to relinquish control over their own bodies, if abortion is illegal. And that's all that matters.
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Does she have a father/brother/uncle named "Mason?"
It's another dogwhistle. When they say, "Life begins at conception," what they actually mean is, "The soul enters the body at conception."
The sperm cell and egg are alive. Fertilization is just a continuation of existing life.