S.D. State Rep.: Stop Coming To America And Performing Legal Abortions, ISIS!

South Dakota state Rep. Isaac Latterell introduced a bill on Tuesday to make it illegal to behead babies in the course of an abortion, and he did it while comparing those same abortion providers to ISIS because they love beheadings just so much. Buckle in, folks. It doesn't get any prettier.

The good legislator is trying to take down the pernicious forces of Big Abortion in his state, specifically the venomous harridans of Planned Parenthood, conservatives' premiere source of manufactured evil ever since ACORN died and people started tuning out the word "Benghazi." The bill in question is titled the Preborn Infant Beheading Ban, a measured title if ever there were one, and states that:

No licensed physician may knowingly behead a living unborn child with the intent of endangering the life or health of the child. A violation of this section is a Class 1 felony.

Two things: Thing the first, if the child is unborn, it is by many definitions not living yet. Thing the second, the bill's language seems to imply that there is an instance where a doctor could knowingly behead a child with the intent of improving the child's life or health. A medically induced beheading is not a concept we've ever encountered before, but as we'll see, Latterell's grasp on medicine or even basic smart thinking is rather tenuous.

As Latterell explained on his blog , the bill is meant to prevent the procedure known as intact dilation and extraction, a rare late-term abortion method that he so lovingly compares to beheadings by ISIS operatives, though we would note that ISIS probably cares more about fetuses than it does about women, which is something they share with Latterell.

He is very upset that Planned Parenthood is ripping up all those adorable "preborn infants" ("preborn" is one of those words like "moist" or "juicy" that just makes our skin crawl), though there is the slight problem that, as the noble representative himself admits, Planned Parenthood does not provide that particular service at a single one of their South Dakota locations. In fact, they only provide first trimester abortions within the state limits, and a D & E can only be performed in the late-second or early-third trimester, i.e. when there's actually something solid to freaking extract.

Far be it for Latterell to let a little thing like "Planned Parenthood does not do that thing" to try and stop Planned Parenthood from doing that thing they do not do. As he explains:

Most people are unaware that this is happening, because Planned Parenthood of Sioux Falls denies that they behead or otherwise dismember unborn children. As RH Reality Check wrote :

“The clinic does not provide surgical abortions in which a D and E is required. The clinic told RH Reality Check that all patients who need D and E services are referred to clinics in other states. Technically, hospitals can perform such procedures in the state, but none of the hospitals in the state do.”

Oh ho ho. You might be smugly thinking that Latterell's argument just went limp as a wet noodle, to which we would ask: who are you, and have you never read Wonkette? Never doubt the pretzel logic twisting skills of a Republican going full wingnut. To quote Latterell again:

But South Dakota’s Department of Health’s website shows at least 7 such extreme and dangerous abortions have been done since 2008. There are probably many more where the method used was unstated or stated incorrectly. Considering Planned Parenthood is the only clinic that does abortions, it is clear that they are lying either to the media or to the department of health.

Catch that? Latterell's argument is that even though Planned Parenthood does not do that particular kind of abortion, the fact that such abortions have occurred anywhere at all means that Planned Parenthood is the only one who could have done them, ipso facto QED Planned Parenthood is secretly beheading babies! IMPEACH! No, wait. Different evil.

Rep. Latterell's master logic so impressed the dastardly folks at Planned Parenthood for exposing their super top secret master plan to destroy children, that they spoke of his blog using such choice words as "inflammatory" and not using "actual medical terminology." That's what they would say, what with being doctors and all.

Latterell apparently tried to introduce this exact same bill last session but it didn't go anywhere. His own blog even tried to stir the outrage by comparing the D & E procedure to a veterinarian decapitating adorable puppies , but apparently dead puppies don't stoke the American outrage machine in quite the same way live terrorists do. This time, Latterell learned from his previous mistakes, and even perfected tried and true techniques like taking ISIS-related quotes out of context to relate them to abortion. We would object to such a technique on journamalism grounds, but the guy he quote-mines is David Brooks, and David Brooks is a fuck.

[ Talking Points Memo / IsaacLatterell.com / South Dakota Legislature / Think Progress ]