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You are here: Home / Politics / Religion / Religious Nuts 2 / He’s Just Being Honest

He’s Just Being Honest

by John Cole|  April 10, 20192:35 pm| 171 Comments

This post is in: Religious Nuts 2

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This is, of course, appalling, but at least one anti-abortion fanatic is being honest about what they believe in:

Men and women, young and old, native Texans and immigrants, they rose to ask lawmakers to protect life, describing a “genocide” and foreseeing the arrival of “God’s wrath.”

The act of public atonement they are seeking is passage of a bill that would criminalize abortion without exception, and make it possible to convict women who undergo the procedure of homicide, which can carry the death penalty in Texas. Though it faces steep odds of becoming law, the measure earned a hearing this week amid a larger legislative push in GOP-controlled states to curtail abortion rights, in a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.

The legislation is the brainchild of state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, a Republican from Arlington, Tex., who was placed under state protection because of death threats he received when he first introduced the bill in 2017. The Air Force veteran, who has been married five times, argues that the measure is necessary to make women “more personally responsible.” He said Tuesday that his intention is to guarantee “equal protection” for life inside and “outside the womb.”

If you remember, Trump, during the primary, famously “stumbled” (in other words said out loud the quiet parts) that women should be punished for abortion before his handlers backed that shit up with a quickness. But, in reality, it’s what the Republicans really think. It’s certainly what the American Taliban, led my Mike Pence and the Opus Dei quorum at the Supreme Court think.

I’ve read quite a bit of fiction, and I play quite a few video games, and in the genre of games I like to play (a lot of isometric RPG’s, fantasy like Deus Ex/The Withcer, etc.) there is always an underlying narrative of some faction of religious fanatics- even in games like Fallout. And usually, no matter how you try to deal with them, peacefully, respectfully, give them their space, inevitably there gets to be a point in the game where the only thing you can do is to burn it all fucking down. Just kill it with fire. Make it no longer cease to exist, loot it, and move on to the rest of the story.

It always seems like over the top fiction. Or, at least it used to. At any rate, I am not sure how we are going to denazify or unradicalize the fanatics after this little experiment in tyranny the Republicans are bringing us. At some point in the near future, if we are to beat back this fascist wave, we’re going to have to address these lunatics and put them back in their place. It’s gonna be ugly, because they are already violent and unhinged. And I just don’t know how we are going to deal with them.

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Reader Interactions

171Comments

  1. 1.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 2:39 pm

    So, for women carrying a child that is nonviable that endangers her health, there will be two deaths in instead of one, and his god will be happy? Nice to know.

    The miscarriage and spontaneous abortion police will a fun bunch, too. They’ll have a lot of cases to persecute.

  2. 2.

    khead

    April 10, 2019 at 2:46 pm

    I’ve read quite a bit of fiction, and I play quite a few video games, and in the genre of games I like to play (a lot of isometric RPG’s, fantasy like Deus Ex/The Withcer, etc.) there is always an underlying narrative of some faction of religious fanatics- even in games like Fallout

    We are headed to a BioShock world. As for the shithead from Texas, the doctor needs to be charged too.

  3. 3.

    Martin

    April 10, 2019 at 2:46 pm

    My mom and I have a rule about nutpicking legislation, which is that it needs to get out of committee before it can be used as an example. CA’s ‘kill the gays’ ballot amendment was hardly representative of views here. Though getting a hearing for this lunacy is farther along than it should ever get.

    As to John’s point about video games, I won’t deny taking some great delight at running around blowing up the Far Cry 5 cult. The game shied away from actually having them be the Christian Identity group that they were obviously modeled after, but in my head I’m shooting up dumbfuck racist white people, and it’s pretty satisfying. BOTW is a better game, but shooting moblins in the head doesn’t shake off the stupidity of the day nearly as well.

    Really good article on the clusterfuck that is the Wisconsin giveaway to Foxconn.

  4. 4.

    Martin

    April 10, 2019 at 2:48 pm

    @jl: It’s obviously the woman’s fault for having an ectopic pregnancy. What the fuck – does she need GPS to figure out where that egg should go? It’s not like there are a lot of routes to choose from. Amirite?

  5. 5.

    Kay

    April 10, 2019 at 2:48 pm

    They’ve always successfully dodged the question of how they were going to enforce the laws, but anyone who read the increasingly radical anti-abortion laws knew where this was going. The punishments are only half the enforcement story, too. They are going to have to monitor women of childbearing age and investigate all miscarriages, because they’ll have to determine the level of medical intervention permissible in any pregnancy that doesn’t end in a birth. It wasn’t an abortion that put a halt to these folks in Ireland- it was a miscarriage where the pregnant women was denied medical care to “save” the baby.

  6. 6.

    Eljai

    April 10, 2019 at 2:48 pm

    The Air Force veteran, who has been married five times…

    What do you want to bet that his ex-wives have restraining orders against the dickwad?

  7. 7.

    Kay

    April 10, 2019 at 2:52 pm

    @jl:

    The miscarriage and spontaneous abortion police will a fun bunch, too. They’ll have a lot of cases to persecute.

    The investigations will be a new and delightful addition to pregnancy care, don’t you think? Nut job prosecutors combing through any woman’s medical records to determine if there was excessive medical intervention. They may have to set up a new police force.

  8. 8.

    Brachiator

    April 10, 2019 at 2:53 pm

    The legislation is the brainchild of state Rep. Tony Tinderholt

    Now there’s a “child” that certainly should be aborted.

    The Air Force veteran, who has been married five times, argues that the measure is necessary to make women “more personally responsible.” He said Tuesday that his intention is to guarantee “equal protection” for life inside and “outside the womb.”

    Married five times. Sounds like a loser who’s holding a hell of a grudge. Also, too, if he is getting all Biblical and shit, isn’t it personally irresponsible for him to have been married more than once?

  9. 9.

    MattF

    April 10, 2019 at 2:58 pm

    Note this, from the linked article:

    Stephen Bratton, a pastor from Houston, sounded a similar note. “Whoever authorizes or commits murder is guilty,” the religious leader said.

    Reporter misses the implication, but it’s the next step, you must not even consider abortion. It’s thoughtcrime.

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    April 10, 2019 at 2:58 pm

    @Kay:

    They’ve always successfully dodged the question of how they were going to enforce the laws, but anyone who read the increasingly radical anti-abortion laws knew where this was going. The punishments are only half the enforcement story, too. They are going to have to monitor women of childbearing age and investigate all miscarriages, because they’ll have to determine the level of medical intervention permissible in any pregnancy that doesn’t end in a birth.

    You have always been on top of this point, Kay. You tell no lies.

  11. 11.

    Mary G

    April 10, 2019 at 3:01 pm

    They are going to go hard after contraception if we let them get away with this. You only have to look at every photo op where Twitler is surrounded by old white men to tell they think barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen is where half the population belongs.

    And meanwhile, if their precious daughter Becky gets in a bit of a fix, they’ll fly her out here to California to abort.

  12. 12.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 3:02 pm

    Some of his supporters see the issue in even more fateful terms.

    “God’s word says, ‘He who sheds man’s blood, by man — the civil government — his blood will be shed,’” said Sonya Gonnella, quoting the Book of Genesis and asking lawmakers to “repent with us.”

    Announcing herself as a “follower of the lord Jesus Christ,” Gonnella was among hundreds of people who testified in a marathon hearing that stretched from Monday into early Tuesday before the Texas House’s Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence.

    This is the exact justification used by the Reverend Paul Hill for assassinating Dr. John Britton and clinic escort James Barnett outside the Ladies Center in Pensacola, FL on 29 July 1994. Hill had been protesting the clinic, and others in the area, with a sign that had that same biblical quote on it. Eventually he realized the sign he made was an inspiration from the Deity to him to take action and live his ministry and what he was preaching. He hid his gun in the pole that his sign was affixed too.

    I’ll dig out the portable hard drive later and post the sections from my doctoral dissertation regarding Paul Hill.

  13. 13.

    Kay

    April 10, 2019 at 3:04 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Well, how ARE they going to enforce it? Why aren’t they asked? They want to pass new laws banning something and they don’t have to explain how they plan on investigating the cases and enforcing the laws?

    Why are they allowed to conduct this whole debate in the abstract? They have their SCOTUS majority. Time to grow up and tell people what they plan to do.

    They don’t tell people because they know it would be unpopular, so instead we get Bible verses and Hallmark cards about mommies and babies. This is real life. Women get medical interventions in pregnancy every day. Do we have to report to the miscarriage police? Strap on an ankle monitor for 9 months? Register like sex offenders? Get specific.

  14. 14.

    MattF

    April 10, 2019 at 3:04 pm

    By the way, I don’t believe that Trump gives a shit about abortion. I’ve always assumed that his ‘slip’ about punishing women was the result of repeating something he’d heard ten minutes earlier from some fanatic.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    April 10, 2019 at 3:05 pm

    @MattF:

    Reporter misses the implication, but it’s the next step, you must not even consider abortion. It’s thoughtcrime.

    I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. He’s saying that the woman isn’t actually carrying out the abortion herself. She’s only authorizing a procedure that’s carried out by a doctor and medical staff. But that doesn’t get the woman off the hook; getting an abortion would be the legal equivalent of hiring a hit man.

  16. 16.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 3:06 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Old Testament says trying to induce an abortion is a good test for a woman’s infidelity to her husband. Will they make an exception for that? Increases the gender oppression and cruelty, so maybe they will.

  17. 17.

    Roger Moore

    April 10, 2019 at 3:07 pm

    @Mary G:

    They are going to go hard after contraception if we let them get away with this.

    This much has always been obvious. After all, these are the same people who describe hormonal contraception as a form of abortion.

  18. 18.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    April 10, 2019 at 3:08 pm

    Rep. Tony Tinderholt, a Republican from Arlington, Tex., who was placed under state protection because of death threats he received when he first introduced the bill in 2017.

    God, what a fucking pansy. Aren’t these the same people who think that a good guy with a gun can beat a bad guy with a gun? Aren’t they supposed to be tough guys? “Real” men? He’s a veteran and he goes running to the police at the first sign of trouble? What a coward!

    Also, fuck him for trying to force women to be pregnant against their wills, especially when the pregnancy is due to rape or there is a medical emergency necessitating abortion. Women are going to die because of this, if this is passed.

    I learned the other day about viability. A lot of forced birthers love to argue that pro-choice advocates are for “late-term abortions”, when at that point, much of the time, the fetus would be viable. The only abortions after that point are medically necessary to save the life of the mother. They also refuse to use the word “fetus”, instead using “baby”.

  19. 19.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 3:10 pm

    @Kay: It’s estimated that between a quarter to a third of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion or miscarriage. Usually fairly early in the term. I am not sure how many of those pregnancies are detected beforehand. But even if a fraction, it would be a nightmare.

  20. 20.

    Dave

    April 10, 2019 at 3:10 pm

    @Mary G: Which is of course insane if you actually take the stated goal of ending abortion at face value; they really want Gilead. There was a time in my life when I underestimated the intensity of sexism and misogyny. I thought it was widespread but relatively shallow compared to say racism. 2016 and it’s secondary effects cured me of that misconception (also helped me recognize though not completely overcome my own unexamined sexism) It’s amazing how much a group of dedicated fanatics can damage even if there position is a distinctly minority one.

  21. 21.

    kindness

    April 10, 2019 at 3:13 pm

    Trump’s/McConnell’s judges are going to bite us in the ass for a generation.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 3:13 pm

    @jl: Abortion is actually required by Judaism, up to the point where the crown of the head breaches into daylight, to save the life and/or health of the mother. The only Jews who do not follow this, which was codified by Maimonides in the 11th century, are the ultra Orthodox and some modern Orthodox who decided that because of the Holocaust, there are so few Jews left that abortion cannot be permitted. Also, because most of the leaders of the ultra Orthodox are Ashkenazi and Maimonides was Sephardi, they’ve always crapped on his responsa and rulings.

    In Israel abortions are legal, covered under Israel’s universal health care system, and, because money is fungible, paid for with the US tax dollars paid by Evangelical Christians.

  23. 23.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 3:13 pm

    @Roger Moore: That contraception is a hidden agenda of the fanatics who oppoe all abortions, no matter what the situation, has long been obvious to those who follow the issue. But I don’t think to medium and low info voters. Polling certainly has shown a vast majority of men and women think contraception is a very good thing, so a good idea to get the anti-choice, anti-woman (and I think fair to say anti-child) agenda of these haters, sadists, and nut jobs out into the open.

  24. 24.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    April 10, 2019 at 3:14 pm

    Which state was it where a loon recently proposed required a funeral service after an abortion. It went nowhere of course. Mr DAW and I don’t even plan to have funeral services for one another.

  25. 25.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 3:17 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks for info, I did not know that. The recipe for detecting an unfaithful wife is in Deuteronomy or Numbers, I forget which. Anyway, it was intended a Biblical pro-tip for the ‘sola scriptura’ Christians out there.

  26. 26.

    Kay

    April 10, 2019 at 3:17 pm

    @jl:

    It’s really common! It’s also really common to get medical care either as intervention or afterward.

    They never address this and it’s tripped up other radical Right countries, who ended up killing pregnant women because they were refused medical care out of fear of these nutjobs storming in and arresting everyone. This has already happened.

    I’m not asking that much. I’m asking them to go to the next logical step in their proposed progression. I’m the status quo- abortion is legal. I don’t have to explain how my new laws work, they do. They refuse. They get some special exception where they just have to recite Bible verses and no one ever asks them to explain the practical import of their new religious laws.

  27. 27.

    Dave

    April 10, 2019 at 3:18 pm

    @jl: Agreed the honest and emotional impacted anti-choice set tends to still favor contraception but at the end of the day they will vote to “save” babies because while they aren’t happy about the contraception portion, if they are even aware of it, they can’t support murder. My mother falls into this category hence why she voted for Trump despite despising every thing else about him. It’s maddening.

    That said if there position on contraception actually enters the mainstream consciousness it’s going to hurt them badly (it’s way to popular) it’s just that there will be a lot of damage done in the meantime.

  28. 28.

    Millard Filmore

    April 10, 2019 at 3:19 pm

    I do not see this in the comments yet:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770

    Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s anti abortion law. It required every woman to submit to a gynecological exam every month, tracked all detected pregnancies, banned both contraception and abortion, and forced a police investigation (by a special abortion police force that consumed half the country’s GDP) for miscarriages, which were treated as illegal abortions.

    from https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211999421

  29. 29.

    MattF

    April 10, 2019 at 3:20 pm

    Also, fwiw, I’m reading a series of SFF novels called ‘The Nanotech Succession’ by Linda Nagata– in which an irresistable urge for communal religious rapture is due a virus spread to humans by agents of an ancient malevolent civilization that died out 30 million years ago.

  30. 30.

    Dave

    April 10, 2019 at 3:20 pm

    @Kay: Yep own it I’m really tired of the bad faith cute bullshit used to pass radical unpopular legislation. And how poor a job the media does when it comes to this reporting any deeper than the official line of bullshit.

  31. 31.

    lou

    April 10, 2019 at 3:20 pm

    This is what Texan women could look forward to if this were to become law.

  32. 32.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 3:21 pm

    @Kay: Very important to tell friends , neighbors, family etc., about there this hateful nonsense will lead, both in terms of contraception, and havoc it would play with the normal course of reproductive life (as their God apparently intended, so get of His/Her back about it, OK, maybe?). Might be good to get up a list of countries that have gone further down that road to madness and oppression and discuss what happened, and publicize it

    So, maybe I am suggesting a front post on it, by somebody or other. Guest post, maybe by an expert?

    @lou: Thanks. I thought El Salvador t was one of the countries that went down that horrible road.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 3:22 pm

    @jl: You’re way, way, way low. When I was doing bioethics in grad school, they were estimating somewhere around 80% of fertilized eggs either never implant or implant and the implantation fails before the woman ever knows she’s pregnant. If I’m remembering the literature correctly, the scientific argument for this is that the woman’s body is protecting itself because through some combination of biochemistry it actually can tell that the fertilized egg is non-viable and/or damaged in some way.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 3:23 pm

    @jl: Life begins at dinner and a movie. Or Netflix and chill.

  35. 35.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    April 10, 2019 at 3:23 pm

    @Kay:

    They get some special exception

    That’s the most maddening part about American conservatives, isn’t it? They exempt themselves from the laws and rules they pass that the rest of us must slavishly obey. They’re the worst people on the planet

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 3:24 pm

    @jl: I thought the test for infidelity was if one spouse was suddenly much, much happier than the other.

    Of course I’m single, so what the hell do I know.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    April 10, 2019 at 3:25 pm

    @jl:

    People can bitch about Roe but at least Roe grappled with reality. At least Roe included an examination of rights and a balance. These people don’t bother with any of that “thinking” stuff. They just proclaim the fetus a person, call it done, and move right to the sentencing phase for the woman. It’s shoddy and lazy thinking and they get away with it because they pull out the all-purpose religious card and wave it around to quell questions. I have questions! It’s on them to answer them.

  38. 38.

    TaMara (HFG)

    April 10, 2019 at 3:27 pm

    who has been married five times…

    Is all you really need to know about this man and his relationship to women….

  39. 39.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 3:28 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I didn’t know the rate of nonviable conception was that high. But I was talking about cases where the fetus is carried long enough so that the woman knows or suspects she is pregnant, or realizes or suspects a pregnancy happened in retrospect.

    So, what I was giving was the low end estimate of the number of people who could be persecuted for experiencing the normal course of reproductive life. The only question is, how many of pregnancies that ended with something that the woman, or the family, notices would be officially recorded for evil purposes by the reproductive gestapo/KGB.

  40. 40.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    April 10, 2019 at 3:29 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’v always been super fascinated with how the body works, especially at the cellular and molecular level. Like, there is a protein called kinesin that literally “walks” across the filaments in cells to transport different molecules. It also astounds me that these sorts of processes vital to life happened because of random mutations. That it works so well is incredible.

  41. 41.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    April 10, 2019 at 3:30 pm

    @Kay:

    You can’t argue with fanatics, Kay. Facts don’t matter to fascists

  42. 42.

    Kay

    April 10, 2019 at 3:31 pm

    Second lady Karen Pence and her daughter, Charlotte, defended Vice President Mike Pence during a Tuesday interview with Martha MacCallum, after he received criticism from South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

    I know people are mad at Buttigieg because political media so clearly swoon for him but this is a good fight for him and he’s best positioned to have it. He does go after Pence a lot, and Pence is a good political target.

    We have such a wealth of candidates we have one whole person to attack Mike Pence :)

  43. 43.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 10, 2019 at 3:35 pm

    @Millard Filmore:

    by a special abortion police force that consumed half the country’s GDP

    Not that I don’t trust Democratic Underground as a news source or anything (ahem) but I wouldn’t mind seeing some independent verification of this particular allegation.

  44. 44.

    Aleta

    April 10, 2019 at 3:35 pm

    So many combinations of corrupt circumstances could lead to a trial. A confirmed fetus, but the next routine ultrasound shows less increase in size than expected. Still a heartbeat. The next ultrasounds pick up progressively weaker heartbeats. Each for their own purpose, a boyfriend, an opportunist lawyer and a political LE official, want to go after the mother or doctors for murder. Or an informant who’s facing prison says he sold her drugs. Or maybe a Chinese acupuncturist who dispenses herbal medicine could be targeted even though he treated but didn’t prescribe for her.

  45. 45.

    WereBear

    April 10, 2019 at 3:35 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I can certainly see how failing certain basic levels of development feedback (the body can be exquisitely sensitive to such) would result in not wasting any resources on conception product that will ultimately fail.

  46. 46.

    John Revolta

    April 10, 2019 at 3:37 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ve heard it also works in cases of legitimate rape.

  47. 47.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 3:37 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I heard a news report that male contraceptive drug is moved through human safety tests, and is moving through mammal effectiveness tests. Same story said that most men would strongly consider taking a safe and effective male contraceptive.

    They going after mail contraception, drugs and rubbers, too?

  48. 48.

    Salty Sam

    April 10, 2019 at 3:39 pm

    I am not sure how we are going to denazify or unradicalize the fanatics after this little experiment

    This! is the think that keeps me up some nights…

  49. 49.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 3:40 pm

    @John Revolta: “I’ve heard it also works in cases of legitimate rape.”

    But now the ‘legitimate’ GOP approved abortion process after ‘legitimate rape’ will be a crime too?
    Gosh, that is just so darn too bad for the women, huh?

  50. 50.

    Mike in NC

    April 10, 2019 at 3:41 pm

    Michael Cohen, as Fat Bastard’s fixer, was responsible for paying hush money to the women that Trump had affairs with. We know the names of two. I also recall there being something about paying other women for abortions, a subject Trump has always refused to discuss. Obviously the Christianists don’t care about that stuff because he was sent by God. The media also seem oddly silent about his numerous dalliances with women who were not married to him over the course of decades.

  51. 51.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 3:41 pm

    @Salty Sam: The older ones will not change. They need to be outvoted, and repeatedly reminded to obey the law after they get good and soundly licked politically

  52. 52.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 10, 2019 at 3:42 pm

    @jl: What about vasectomies and tubal ligations?

  53. 53.

    Karen

    April 10, 2019 at 3:43 pm

    @Kay: And they’ll be monitoring to make sure all women of child bearing age are pregnant or were pregnant with child, because the next step to this is to outlaw birth control (except condoms). They call birth control an abortifacient now!

  54. 54.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    April 10, 2019 at 3:43 pm

    @Salty Sam: It’s really hard to put the genie back in the bottle once you let it out.

  55. 55.

    MattF

    April 10, 2019 at 3:44 pm

    @jl: Well, currently, unintended pregnancy is an accident for men and a sin for women. I think changing that is the real problem, rather than some technical improvement in methods of contraception.

  56. 56.

    rikyrah

    April 10, 2019 at 3:44 pm

    Oh Senator,
    The AG is a phucking hack ???

    https://twitter.com/SenBlumenthal/status/1116062486413942787

  57. 57.

    Roger Moore

    April 10, 2019 at 3:45 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Life begins at dinner and a movie.

    I think this would count as the incel position, though maybe they’d extend it to “life begins when I think she’s desirable”.

  58. 58.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 3:45 pm

    @Kay: The Pences have a First Amendment right to believe whatever they want and even to say it without government interference. What they don’t have is a right not to be called out on it by everyone else or to not be denounced because what they believe is actually bigotry and prejudice.

  59. 59.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 10, 2019 at 3:46 pm

    How do you deal with these folks? FEMA camps.

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    April 10, 2019 at 3:46 pm

    @Kay: Naturally the Pence ladies’ “defense” boiled down to this: You’re not allowed to criticize our hateful, bigoted views that ruin people’s lives because our hateful, bigoted views are based on religion! Fuck every damned one of those fanatics, and good for Buttigieg for going after them. Trump is such a trainwreck clown that Pence flies under the radar way more than he should, given his antediluvian views.

  61. 61.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 3:47 pm

    @jl: I haven’t done research into this particular brand of All American crazy in a while, so I don’t know.

  62. 62.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 10, 2019 at 3:47 pm

    @khead: Republicans have always wanted to charge the doctor, charging women is the new twist.

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 3:48 pm

    @Salty Sam: Truth & Reconciliation Commission and a Crimes Against Humanity Tribunal.

  64. 64.

    Roger Moore

    April 10, 2019 at 3:50 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    I think there has always been a minority of the minority that has wanted to charge women for procuring abortions; they’ve just been hushed by the rest of the group because even the “no abortion ever” people can see they’re toxic.

  65. 65.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    April 10, 2019 at 3:50 pm

    @rikyrah:
    That Twitter thread is full of RW loons. The bots are out in full force. Gotta love the asshole yelling about “stolen valor”.

  66. 66.

    Betty Cracker

    April 10, 2019 at 3:50 pm

    @TaMara (HFG): I Wiki’d the shit-stain, and it turns out he has been married five times but only four women were involved. One married him, divorced him, remarried him and re-divorced him. I will never understand that in a million years. It’s like having an appendix removed and then reinserted. WTF?

  67. 67.

    Dave

    April 10, 2019 at 3:50 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I’d say there just starting to be comfortable enough to voice it or have been sufficiently marinating in their own little media bubble that they don’t realize how ugly that is to everyone else. Or they do and just don’t give a rats ass because righteous fanaticism.

  68. 68.

    Brachiator

    April 10, 2019 at 3:50 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    In Israel abortions are legal, covered under Israel’s universal health care system, and, because money is fungible, paid for with the US tax dollars paid by Evangelical Christians.

    I really love the irony in this.

  69. 69.

    matt

    April 10, 2019 at 3:54 pm

    The Air force is full of fucking evangelical kooks.

  70. 70.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 3:54 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Speaking of Barr, spying, and whether things were legal:

    A recent IG investigation found DOJ under Barr secretly launched a vast and legally questionable phone-data surveillance program in 1992 without first determining whether that would be legal. https://t.co/3RIfNEpdcc pic.twitter.com/x1f4IkwCDp

    — Brad Heath (@bradheath) April 10, 2019

  71. 71.

    Betty Cracker

    April 10, 2019 at 3:55 pm

    @Brachiator: It’s also a giant, flashing neon sign pointing to said evangelicals’ hypocrisy. If they cared about the baybeeeeeez as much as they claim, they’d be marching around demanding an end to US aid to Israel.

  72. 72.

    jl

    April 10, 2019 at 3:55 pm

    @Brachiator: If you can make an argument it all is the mysterious will of God in bringing on Armageddon, mass death and condemnation of almost everyone to hell asap, the fanatical Christian fundamentalists will be cool with it.

  73. 73.

    MattF

    April 10, 2019 at 3:56 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Y’know… I sorta guessed that there was a twofer in there. Not all that uncommon, apparently.

  74. 74.

    JustRuss

    April 10, 2019 at 3:56 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    In Israel abortions are legal, covered under Israel’s universal health care system, and, because money is fungible, paid for with the US tax dollars paid by Evangelical Christians.

    Well isn’t that interesting? I’m just going to predict that any congressperson who mentions that will be castigated for their antisemitsim.

  75. 75.

    Azelie

    April 10, 2019 at 3:57 pm

    So, I’ve had a few early miscarriages and am also a scholar who deals with women and gender. One of the things that struck me as I was dealing with the miscarriages is how little we know about it scientifically. Partly this is because it’s difficult to study, but another factor is that there is not really urgency to devote resources to it. As someone who was trying to figure out how to approach a medical issue and its implications for my life, it seemed particularly galling to me that for all the worry about the unborn there was not the kind of concern for devoting resources to medical investigation and potential treatments that you would think would accompany a medical problem that applies to this huge number of people. You don’t have to be a gender scholar to understand that those who profess to care about the unborn do not really care about the unborn.

  76. 76.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 3:57 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    pic.twitter.com/GdVg5f2HGL

    — Carl J. Feher (@CJ_Feher) April 10, 2019

  77. 77.

    Brachiator

    April 10, 2019 at 3:58 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    @khead: Republicans have always wanted to charge the doctor, charging women is the new twist.

    Yes. The idea was that women were so fragile and weak-minded that they could not be held responsible for getting an abortion, so that all of the blame fell on the doctor. This Texas nonsense obviously wants to severely punish women for having sex and getting pregnant.

    I partly blame Trump for this. He is also big on dealing out punishment to those who dare to defy his will.

  78. 78.

    Steve in the ATL

    April 10, 2019 at 3:58 pm

    Apropos of nothing, I am boarding a plane with the UVA women’s gymnastics team.

    Wahoowa!

  79. 79.

    Dave

    April 10, 2019 at 3:59 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Evangelicals have provided themselves a nice out for that one though. As it’s between God and his misguidef Chosen People it’s not for us to interfere (unless of course they start electing liberals who peace or something similar) Until they are all massacred or converted during Armageddon of course. And I’m going to go back to not thinking to hard about how much influence a dressed up end times death cult has on the foreign policy of a nation that has the capacity to end all human life.

  80. 80.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    April 10, 2019 at 3:59 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Initiating large, legally questionable surveillance programs must run in the family for the Bushes. Like Poppy, like son

  81. 81.

    eemom

    April 10, 2019 at 3:59 pm

    @Brachiator: @Adam L Silverman:

    In Israel abortions are legal, covered under Israel’s universal health care system, and, because money is fungible, paid for with the US tax dollars paid by Evangelical Christians.

    Good thing they’re too stupid to process that information, or it might explode their itty bitty brains.

  82. 82.

    Sister Golden Bear

    April 10, 2019 at 4:02 pm

    @jl:

    The miscarriage and spontaneous abortion police will a fun bunch, too. They’ll have a lot of cases to persecute.

    Feature, not a bug.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 4:02 pm

    @Brachiator: @Betty Cracker: And as I wrote here on the front page, Israel, while having a legal form of private gun ownership, regulates private gun ownership heavily.

  84. 84.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 4:04 pm

    @jl: Also, the babies being aborted in Israel are predominantly Jewish and Muslim, so…

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    April 10, 2019 at 4:05 pm

    @MattF:
    Also misses the point that they don’t consider the fact that they want to murder people as well. Of course they don’t consider “those people” to be human so their murder is god approved.

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 4:05 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: Eyes forward, hands to yourself!

  87. 87.

    NotMax

    April 10, 2019 at 4:10 pm

    But – but – the “country is full.” So the choice becomes either mandatory abortion or the forced deportation of the pregnant, no? //

  88. 88.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 10, 2019 at 4:10 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: I was once stuck in the Frankfurt international transit zone with some DPRK men’s team, I’m guessing volleyball or basketball. I’d bet UVA women gymnasts are more fun. The DPRK guys weren’t very communicative.

  89. 89.

    NotMax

    April 10, 2019 at 4:13 pm

    @Gin & Tonic

    Basketball? Was the center a towering 5′ 6″?

  90. 90.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    April 10, 2019 at 4:13 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Wouldn’t surprise me to learn that unauthorized communications with outsiders was illegal for them

  91. 91.

    TOP123

    April 10, 2019 at 4:13 pm

    Just came to the site and admit I haven’t read the comments yet. Live here in Texas. My partner has physiological reasons that make pregnancy extremely risky. If we want to have kids, it’ll likely be through adoption, as any pregnancy for her is potentially life-threatening. She’s a doctor. She’s not joking around or blowing things out of proportion, it’s just reality. I don’t know why people can’t understand this–or more likely refuse to recognize the validity of people other than totemic fetuses.

  92. 92.

    rikyrah

    April 10, 2019 at 4:14 pm

    @Kay:

    Well, how ARE they going to enforce it? Why aren’t they asked? They want to pass new laws banning something and they don’t have to explain how they plan on investigating the cases and enforcing the laws?

    Why are they allowed to conduct this whole debate in the abstract? They have their SCOTUS majority. Time to grow up and tell people what they plan to do.

    That’s right. Tell the phucking truth. Make them be honest about their intent.

  93. 93.

    Peale

    April 10, 2019 at 4:15 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: GDP must be the the Romanian Police, or something and not Gross Domestic Product. I know near the end, a lot of the economies of the eastern bloc countries stopped working, but the economy really had to have tanked for that to be the economic GDP number. Heck the economic process normal people go through to find someone to mate with has to have at least as much impact on GDP as the investigation of pregnancies.

  94. 94.

    catclub

    April 10, 2019 at 4:15 pm

    But, in reality, it’s what the Republicans really think. It’s certainly what the American Taliban, led my Mike Pence and the Opus Dei quorum at the Supreme Court think.

    I am not sure they do. That would be too logical. They think women who are tricked into abortion have no agency, only the planned parenthood clinic. I think this guy is an outlier – so far.

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    April 10, 2019 at 4:15 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: IIRC, Israel also has socialized medicine, gender and LGBTQ equality in their armed forces, etc. Unless their set of religious fanatics has changed that recently.

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 4:17 pm

    @Betty Cracker: They have not. Who knows what will happen with the new coalition government.

  97. 97.

    catclub

    April 10, 2019 at 4:17 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Feature, not a bug.

    selective prosecution of same being the feature.

  98. 98.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 10, 2019 at 4:18 pm

    @Roger Moore: Absolutely, also only charging doctors implies that women have no agency.

  99. 99.

    Ksmiami

    April 10, 2019 at 4:20 pm

    @khead: we need to cut off their food and water supply and let god help them. They are not entitled to the fruits of a modern technological world. Or as Marcellus Wallace says- let’s go medieval on their asses.

  100. 100.

    JaneE

    April 10, 2019 at 4:20 pm

    @jl: If you go to a Catholic hospital, this is reality now.

  101. 101.

    Ruckus

    April 10, 2019 at 4:21 pm

    @Betty Cracker:
    Maybe she wasn’t sure the appendix was actually diseased. Wanna bet she is now?

  102. 102.

    Betty Cracker

    April 10, 2019 at 4:23 pm

    Less depressing topic: SpaceX Falcon Heavy set to launch at 8 PM ET and attempt a triple landing. It’s cloudy here now, but with any luck, the clouds will dissipate and we’ll be able to see it!

  103. 103.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 10, 2019 at 4:25 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: I was on a plane with Miss America, she was even on my row; flying coach no less.

  104. 104.

    Ksmiami

    April 10, 2019 at 4:26 pm

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I kind of feel like they don’t deserve to live here like we should drop them into Saudi Arabia where they’ll feel more comfortable…

  105. 105.

    JaneE

    April 10, 2019 at 4:27 pm

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: If the fetus is viable and intervention is necessary to save the mother, it is called an emergency c-section, not a late-term abortion. Pro-birthers call it an abortion even if the fetus is already dead and causing sepsis.

  106. 106.

    Tim in SF

    April 10, 2019 at 4:28 pm

    What I’ve never understood is how they plan to stop women from driving or flying to another state for an abortion.

    Texas Abortion PD: “Did you have an abortion?”
    Woman: “I sure did. I flew to San Diego for a couple of days. Had it at the Womancare Clinic across from Balboa Park. Stayed at the Park Hotel right next door. Lovely time.”

    We’re not going to stop women from travelling, so isn’t this just a restriction on women who don’t have the means to travel out of state?

  107. 107.

    Ruckus

    April 10, 2019 at 4:28 pm

    @Dave:
    It’s not that they don’t give a shit, their beliefs always out weigh yours, because their beliefs are religious based, which in their world is a far, far higher plane than it’s possible for yours to be. And it doesn’t matter to them that your religious beliefs say it’s OK, they don’t actually recognize other religions.

  108. 108.

    Steve in the ATL

    April 10, 2019 at 4:28 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: now that’s just sad

  109. 109.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 10, 2019 at 4:28 pm

    @NotMax: Koreans are actually tall for Asians, at least in a historical context.

  110. 110.

    cain

    April 10, 2019 at 4:28 pm

    I wonder if he feels that illegal unborn should have the same protections? If so, then this asshole should be against kids locked up in cages, right?

  111. 111.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 4:29 pm

    @JaneE: Like the Santorums!
    http://oursilverribbon.org/?p=188

    Santorum: Our Abortion Was Different

    Rick Santorum is one dangerously confused denialist. The former Pennsylvania Senator and presidential aspirant is best known for his inability to associate his professed compassion for life at the level of the zygote, with the physical realities of human sexuality. He has equated loving same-sex relationships to bestiality. He is opposed to abortion under any circumstance. Almost.

    In October, 1996, his wife Karen had a second trimester abortion. They don’t like to describe it that way. In his 2004 interview with Terry Gross, Santorum characterizes the fetus, who must be treated as an autonomous person, as a practically a gunslinging threat, whom the mother must murder in self-defense. Karen has had to justify her decision to save her own life by explaining that if she died her other children would have lost a mother.

    Republican extremists in Congress and the statehouses propose to make abortion illegal even if it would save the mother’s life. Even the Santorums admit they would make that choice, while claiming that they didn’t.

    Losing a pregnancy because of a fatal fetal anomaly is never cause for celebration. The pain of second-trimester abortions is compounded by the hateful hypocrites who vilify families facing sorrowful circumstances, and the resulting scarcity of abortion clinicians.

    It is revolting that Rick and Karen Santorum choose to stigmatize and harass those of us who, as they did, grieve over the loss of a possible child in the second trimester.

    Abortion should not be driving U.S. policy. It’s not a more fundamental right than the right to a job or safety from violence. But we can’t stop it from being used as a wedge issue if we never talk about our experiences.

    Here’s the Santorums’ description of their second trimester abortion, written by Steve Goldstein, Philadelphia Inquirer, May 4, 1997

    Karen was in her 19th week of pregnancy. Husband and wife were in a suburban Virginia office for a routine sonogram when a radiologist told them that the fetus Karen was carrying had a fatal defect and was going to die.

    After consulting with specialists, who offered several options including abortion, the Santorums decided on long-shot intrauterine surgery to correct an obstruction of the urinary tract called posterior urethral valve syndrome.

    A few days later, rare “bladder shunt” surgery was performed at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. The incision in the womb carried a high risk of infection.

    Two days later, at home in the Pittsburgh suburb of Verona, Karen Santorum became feverish. Her Philadelphia doctors instructed her to hurry to Pittsburgh’s Magee-Women’s Hospital, which has a unit specializing in high-risk pregnancies.

    After examining Karen, who was nearly incoherent with a 105-degree fever, a doctor at Magee led Santorum into the hallway outside her room and said that she had an intrauterine infection and some type of medical intervention was necessary. Unless the source of the infection, the fetus, was removed from Karen’s body, she would likely die.

    At minimum, the doctor said, Karen had to be given antibiotics intravenously or she might go into septic shock and die.

    The Santorums were at a crossroads.

    Once they agreed to use antibiotics, they believed they were committing to delivery of the fetus, which they knew would most likely not survive outside the womb.

    “The doctors said they were talking about a matter of hours or a day or two before risking sepsis and both of them might die,” Santorum said. “Obviously, if it was a choice of whether both Karen and the child are going to die or just the child is going to die, I mean it’s a pretty easy call.”

    Shivering under heated blankets in Magee’s labor and delivery unit as her body tried to reject the source of the infection, Karen felt cramping from early labor.

    Santorum agreed to start his wife on intravenous antibiotics “to buy her some time,” he said.

    The antibiotics brought Karen’s fever down. The doctor suggested a drug to accelerate her labor.

    “The cramps were labor, and she was going to get into more active labor,” Santorum said. “Karen said, `We’re not inducing labor, that’s an abortion. No way. That isn’t going to happen. I don’t care what happens.’ ”

    As her fever subsided, Karen – a former neonatal intensive-care nurse – asked for something to stop the labor. Her doctors refused, Santorum recalled, citing malpractice concerns.

    Santorum said her labor proceeded without having to induce an abortion.

    Karen, a soft-spoken red-haired 37-year-old, said that “ultimately” she would have agreed to intervention for the sake of her other children.

    “If the physician came to me and said if we don’t deliver your baby in one hour you will be dead, yeah, I would have to do it,” she said. “But for me, it was at the very end. I would never make a decision like that until all other means had been thoroughly exhausted.”

    The fetus was delivered at 20 weeks, at least a month shy of what most doctors consider viability.

    In the months after the birth and death of Gabriel Michael Santorum, rumors began circulating in the Pennsylvania medical community that Karen Santorum had undergone an abortion. Those rumors found their way to The Inquirer, prompting the questions that led to this article.

    “There are a lot of people who aren’t big fans of Rick Santorum,” the senator said of the rumors. “You’re a public figure, and you’re out there. Maybe it accomplishes a political purpose”…

    _____________________________________________________________

    see also:

    http://www.slate.com/id/1210/ The New Yorker, Jan. 5, 1998

    An article chronicles the troubled pregnancy of Karen Santorum, wife of partial-birth-abortion foe Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and the evolution of the senator’s views on the procedure. A birth defect threatened the lives of both fetus and mother, forcing the couple to face the ethical question of whether or not to abort to save her life. Premature labor made the quandary moot–the baby died two hours after birth–but stiffened their resolve against late-term abortion. (A “Strange Bedfellow” bashes Santorum’s “pathetic grandstanding.”)

    __________________________________________________________________

    http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo69a0/id81.html

    Audio Interview: Santorum defends the GOP Platform on Reproductive Rights

    Terry Gross, Fresh Air Aug 30, 2004 (20 min.)

    Santorum discusses:

    Human Life amendment to the constitution,

    Why judges opposed to Roe are not activists,

    That embryos from fertility clinics should be adopted,

    The Catholic mass and viewing with his children at home of his son, Gabriel, who was born 4 months premature and lived for 2 hours .

    Listen to entire interview.

    http://www.now.org/issues/abortion/alerts/11-13-97.html

    Activists urged to call Family Circle on abortion article

    November, 1997

    ——————————————————————————–

    Family Circle magazine featured an anti-abortion article in the “Full Circle” section of their October 1997 issue. The article, written by Karen Santorum, decried the use of late-term abortion under any circumstances. And it told the story of her own tragic pregnancy and the decision she and her family made – an option she and her husband would deny to other women .

    Karen Santorum is the wife of right-wing, anti-abortion Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). In 1996, Senator Santorum led the debate on a bill that attempted to ban late-term abortions, and refused to make an exception even in the case of “grievous bodily injury” to the woman. In Santorum’s article, she expresses her view that carrying a non-viable fetus to term is the only option, and apparently does not think the woman’s health or future fertility should be a consideration.

    The National Abortion Federation (NAF) responded by requesting that a patient response be printed in the next issue, thus presenting an opposing view and bringing the argument “Full Circle.” We have learned from NAF that Family Circle is only planning to publish “Letters to the Editor,” and your actions could change their decision. Please urge Family Circle to print the article by Sophie Horak, which was submitted to them by NAF, in its entirety. We do not have permission to send you the text of the original article.

    We urge you to email Family Circle at [email protected] or call (212-499-2000) and express concern over their incomplete (and in this case, biased) reporting on the very private issue of abortion.

    Send letters to:

    Family Circle Magazine

    ___________________________________________________________

    http://www.post-gazette.com/books/19980623corner.asp

    Karen Santorum’s letter to ill-fated son express joy, sorrow

    Tuesday, June 23, 1998

    By Karen MacPherson

    ________________________________________________________________

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61804-2005Apr17?language=printer

    Father First, Senator Second

    For Rick Santorum, Politics Could Hardly Get More Personal

    By Mark Leibovich

    Washington Post Staff Writer

    Monday, April 18, 2005; Page C01

    In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael, the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the womb.

    Upon their son’s death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen’s parents’ home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.

    “That’s my little guy,” Santorum says, pointing to the photo of Gabriel, in which his tiny physique is framed by his father’s hand. The senator often speaks of his late son in the present tense. It is a rare instance in which he talks softly.

    He and Karen brought Gabriel’s body home so their children could “absorb and understand that they had a brother,” Santorum says. “We wanted them to see that he was real,” not an abstraction, he says. Not a “fetus,” either, as Rick and Karen were appalled to see him described — “a 20-week-old fetus” — on a hospital form. They changed the form to read “20-week-old baby.”

    Karen Santorum, a former nurse, wrote letters to her son during and after her pregnancy. She compiled them into a book, “Letters to Gabriel,” a collection of prayers, Bible passages and a chronicle of the prenatal complications that led to Gabriel’s premature delivery. At one point, her doctor raised the prospect of an abortion, an “option” Karen ridicules. “Letters to Gabriel” also derides “pro-abortion activists” and decries the “infanticide” of “partial-birth abortion,” the legality of which Rick Santorum was then debating in the Senate. The book reads, in places, like a call to action.

    “When the partial-birth abortion vote comes to the floor of the U.S. Senate for the third time,” Karen writes to Gabriel, “your daddy needs to proclaim God’s message for life with even more strength and devotion to the cause.”

    The issue came up again the following spring. Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, appeared on the Senate floor with oversize illustrations of fetuses in various stages of delivery. He described the process by which a physician “brutally kills” a child “by thrusting a pair of scissors into the back of its skull and suctioning its brains out.” He asked that a 5-year-old girl be admitted to the visitors’ gallery, though Senate rules forbid children under 6. “She is very interested in the subject,” Santorum said, explaining that the girl’s mother had been a candidate for a late-term abortion when doctors advised her during her pregnancy that the child was unlikely to survive.

    Sen. Barbara Boxer objected, saying it would be “rather exploitive to have a child present in the gallery” during such a debate. Santorum relented, bemoaning Boxer’s objection as proof that “we have coarsened the comity of this place.”

    The same has been said of Santorum. In so many words, or facial gestures….

  112. 112.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 10, 2019 at 4:30 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: Flying coach, yes. She was the former Miss Hawaii and was flying back for the pageant in Atlantic City to crown her successor, this was 9/10/2001.

  113. 113.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    April 10, 2019 at 4:33 pm

    @JaneE:

    I know that. That’s just the term they call it, which I think I alluded to in the original comment using quotation marks around it.

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    April 10, 2019 at 4:37 pm

    @TOP123:
    Wanna bet they consider that your wife should have to give her life for a fetus, regardless?
    Many of the evangelic consider that a newborn maybe a convert, they know you are not one.

  115. 115.

    Mary G

    April 10, 2019 at 4:39 pm

    @Tim in SF: Yep. Kill off some poors.

  116. 116.

    Fleeting Expletive

    April 10, 2019 at 4:39 pm

    I think a whole lot of the anti-abortion cohort is cosplaying a membership ritual in order to belong to the RW cult. Nothing to do really with babeeez but a lot to do with basic patriarchy, which at his point in our culture perceives itself embattled and surrounded by amazons and Tucker C’s insult intended for Chris Hayes. Boys are just scared, they can’t help themselves.
    It always winds up being about power to subjugate others, and it’s not often women have been able to even exist on their own terms, historically, culturally, or individually.

  117. 117.

    NotMax

    April 10, 2019 at 4:40 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA
    Note that G&T’s comment specifically cited the North Korean team.

    …Professor Daniel Schwekendiek from Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul has studied the heights of North Korean refugees measured when they crossed the border into South Korea.

    He says North Korean men are, on average, between 3 – 8cm (1.2 – 3.1in) shorter than their South Korean counterparts.
    [snip]
    “If you look at older Koreans,” says Schwekendiek, “we now see a situation where the average South Korean woman is approaching the height of the average North Korean man.

    “This is to my knowledge a unique situation, where women become taller than men.” Source

  118. 118.

    JaneE

    April 10, 2019 at 4:42 pm

    @Azelie: The birth control pill came out of research into infertility – why some women couldn’t conceive with no apparent gynecological problems. They may be afraid that research will enable a better abortiafacient medication.

  119. 119.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    April 10, 2019 at 4:42 pm

    @NotMax: Yes, but any child that had basketball skill would be well fed and probably grow to normal height.

  120. 120.

    Brachiator

    April 10, 2019 at 4:43 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    It’s also a giant, flashing neon sign pointing to said evangelicals’ hypocrisy. If they cared about the baybeeeeeez as much as they claim, they’d be marching around demanding an end to US aid to Israel.

    Evangelicals are stupid, and largely suckers being exploited by right wing crackpots like the Kochs, etc. Also I don’t think that evangelicals even know that modern Israel exists. Some of them seem to think that there is no sin or crime in Israel, and that morality is policed by ultra-Orthodox rabbis and that (holy of holies) there is no separation of church and state.

  121. 121.

    sab

    April 10, 2019 at 4:46 pm

    @Tim in SF: Flying to another state works fine if you can afford it and you are actually having an abortion. It’s not an option if you are having a failed pregnancy or miscarriage. Once your water breaks it’s too late to travel.

    That’s what happened to Savita Halappanavar in Ireland. Once you are in labor you can’t just get on a plane to go elsewhere. So they let her suffer because the child that could not be aborted while it had a heartbeat, although it had no chance of survival. That was standard operating procedure in Ireland before the referendum. They would wait it out until toxic shock from septicemia killed either the mother or the child first. If the child died first they would rush the mother off to the ICU and try to save her. In Savita’s case she died first, so the fetus also died because it was too young to live outside of her uterus.

    I am old enough to remember before Roe v. Wade. In some of the more benighted parts of the country this was normal. I knew someone who almost died like this in Mississipi in 1970. She didn’t know this was normal. She lost the kid, all her hair fell out, and she was terrified about ever getting pregnant again. She didn’t realize there were medical alternatives that could have saved her life and fertility.

    In other parts of the country (big cities) there were doctors who would help with a quiet medical procedure that would save the mother.

    A guy who has been married five times probably doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his wife’s life or fertility. There are always other possible wives out there.

  122. 122.

    stinger

    April 10, 2019 at 4:47 pm

    paid for with the US tax dollars paid by Evangelical Christians.

    That’s the only thing about all this that makes me smile.

  123. 123.

    JPL

    April 10, 2019 at 4:48 pm

    @Mary G: Restrictions on birth control and abortion have always been about the poors.

    Forced pregnancy

  124. 124.

    The Moar You Know

    April 10, 2019 at 4:48 pm

    It’s really cute that y’all think that when these psychos come after contraception that the American people are going to rise up and draw a line in the sand.

    We will do nothing at all. They are willing to make their point with guns and blood. We are not. And we will lose. “Bigly”, in the words of some asshole who should have been aborted.

  125. 125.

    JPL

    April 10, 2019 at 4:52 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I found it amusing that Pence had to send his wife and daughter out to attack Pete B. Since EFG is no longer with us, let me say Fuckem

  126. 126.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    April 10, 2019 at 4:52 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    I thought you weren’t ever coming back to BJ? You said so yourself.

  127. 127.

    JaneE

    April 10, 2019 at 4:54 pm

    @TOP123: They choose to ignore anything that doesn’t fit into their black-and-white world. You hear politicians say that no one needs to have an abortion or that there are no longer any medical reasons to abort. If that were anywhere close to true, the US wouldn’t be down among third world countries in maternal mortality.

  128. 128.

    Fleeting Expletive

    April 10, 2019 at 4:54 pm

    Also quite convenient that abortion is a big ol’ sin that only a woman can commit, therefore an eternal demonstration of the unquestionable moral superiority of the sperm donor side of the equation. That, of course logically requires menfolk to assume the burdens of supervising the women. For their own good, naturally.

    “human kindness is overflowing
    and I think it’s going to rain today.”

  129. 129.

    joel hanes

    April 10, 2019 at 4:55 pm

    Fallout

    In Fallout 4 Far Harbor, I managed by very careful choices to engineer an uneasy three-way truce between the synths of Acadia, the Children Of Atom cult, and the islanders/settlers. Some of the means employed were a bit, uh, direct.

    OTOH, in the Commonwealth, I had only the smallest bit of remorse about destroying Covenant, which was a seriously racist cult, and The Institute, sort of a cult. The Brotherhood of Steel I’ve allowed to continue, even though they’re a militaristic genocide cult, because Halen and Neriah are nice.

    But I chose the Minutemen ending because basically I’m a commoner at heart.

  130. 130.

    John Revolta

    April 10, 2019 at 4:57 pm

    @Tim in SF: Crossing state lines to commit a felony. Easy peasy.

  131. 131.

    RedDirtGirl

    April 10, 2019 at 4:58 pm

    @Brachiator: Not if they are all at the same time!

  132. 132.

    chopper

    April 10, 2019 at 5:00 pm

    @John Revolta:

    wouldn’t that be a jurisdictional problem?

  133. 133.

    John Revolta

    April 10, 2019 at 5:00 pm

    @Steve in the ATL: @?BillinGlendaleCA: I flew back from London with the Martha Graham dancers once. Good times.

  134. 134.

    Sab

    April 10, 2019 at 5:05 pm

    @sab: Everyone addressing the voluntary abortion question with cracks and jokes is ignoring the medically necessary abortions to save the mother. These are real and unforunately common.

    Too many men in our commentariat.

    Keep on smirking, guys.

  135. 135.

    Mary G

    April 10, 2019 at 5:06 pm

    Early respite thread:

    Sooo… I found a puppy in a ditch on my way to work this morning. How was your day?! pic.twitter.com/JPJJqUz3kJ— Tegan (@TeganG_) April 9, 2019

  136. 136.

    joel hanes

    April 10, 2019 at 5:09 pm

    re: Ireland

    Allow me to recommend to all and sundry the movie “Philomena”, starring Judy Dench.

  137. 137.

    trollhattan

    April 10, 2019 at 5:09 pm

    @John Revolta:
    Was Betty Ford with them?

  138. 138.

    Brachiator

    April 10, 2019 at 5:10 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    It’s really cute that y’all think that when these psychos come after contraception that the American people are going to rise up and draw a line in the sand.

    I don’t believe that at all.

    @Sab:

    Too many men in our commentariat.

    Give it a rest.

    And I say that with all due respect.

  139. 139.

    trollhattan

    April 10, 2019 at 5:12 pm

    @Mary G:
    Awww, Larry!

  140. 140.

    bemused

    April 10, 2019 at 5:13 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    You’re killing me…like removing and reinserting appendix. My stomach hurts from laughing.

  141. 141.

    J R in WV

    April 10, 2019 at 5:13 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    OK, not gonna compute GDP percentages, but here’s some horrific text from a wiki article about Decree 770:

    To counter this sharp decline of the population, the Communist Party decided that the Romanian population should be increased from 23 to 30 million inhabitants. In October 1966,[1] Decree 770 was authorized by Ceaușescu. Abortion and contraception were declared illegal, except for:

    women over 45 (later lowered to 40)
    women who had already borne four children (later raised to five)
    women whose life would be threatened by carrying to term, due to medical complications
    women who were pregnant through rape and/or incest

    Enforcement

    To enforce the decree, society was strictly controlled. Contraceptives disappeared from the shelves and all women were forced to be monitored monthly by a gynecologist.[citation needed] Any detected pregnancies were followed until birth. Secret police kept close eyes on operations in hospitals.

    Sex education was refocused primarily on the benefits of motherhood, including the ostensible satisfaction of being a heroic mother who gives her homeland many children.

    The direct consequence of the decree was a huge baby boom. Between 1966 and 1967 the number of births almost doubled, and the number of children per woman increased from 1.9 to 3.7. The generation born in 1967 and 1968 was the largest in Romanian history. Hastily, thousands of nursery schools were built.
    Circumvention and mortality

    In the seventies, birth rates declined again. Economic pressure on families remained, and people began to seek ways to circumvent the decree. Wealthier women were able to obtain contraceptives illegally, or bribed doctors to give diagnoses which made abortion possible. Especially among the less educated and poorer women there were many unwanted pregnancies. These women could only utilize primitive methods of abortion, which led to infection, sterility or even their own death. The mortality among pregnant women became the highest of Europe during the reign of Ceaușescu. While the childbed mortality rate kept declining over the years in neighboring countries, in Romania it increased to more than ten times that of its neighbors.

    Many children born in this period became malnourished, were severely physically handicapped, or ended up in care under grievous conditions, which led to a rise in child mortality.

  142. 142.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 10, 2019 at 5:14 pm

    @cain:

    I wonder if he feels that illegal unborn should have the same protections? If so, then this asshole should be against kids locked up in cages, right?

    You can make the same argument coming from the other direction: Since this country can’t possibly accommodate any more immigrants — “We’re out of room! We’re FULL! Don’t come here, there’s no room for you!” — you’d think they would enthusiastically support contraception and therapeutic abortion.

    ETA: I see NotMax had the same thought at #87, an hour earlier.

    (Not to mention, I always love how people who describe themselves as fervently “pro-life” are so devoted to the death penalty.)

  143. 143.

    WaterGirl

    April 10, 2019 at 5:14 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh my gosh, you sound like my 8th grade teacher, Sister Dolores. She would say exactly that, plus she would warn the boys against “playing pocket pool”

  144. 144.

    Sab

    April 10, 2019 at 5:15 pm

    @joel hanes: She didn’t die in childbirth. She survived and her kid survived and was adopted.

    Savita, who had a husband at home who loved her, did die.

    These two stories are not remotely comparable except that all the deciding figures were Irish Catholics clergy and politicians.

    I think the Irish abortion referendum pretty well decided about how they feel about those guys.

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    April 10, 2019 at 5:16 pm

    Ran across this the other day. Barbara Bush on abortion

    And so the answer to her question — “What do I feel about abortion?” — was this:

    “Having decided that the first breath is when the soul enters the body, I believe in Federally funded abortion,” Mrs. Bush wrote. “Why should the rich be allowed to afford abortions and the poor not?”

    According to Page, Mrs. Bush was not against some possible restrictions on abortion but felt it wasn’t “a Presidential issue.”

    “Abortion is personal,” Mrs. Bush wrote, and should be between the mother, father and doctors.

  146. 146.

    J R in WV

    April 10, 2019 at 5:19 pm

    OK, my comment about abortion control in Romania is in moderation, probably because of some secret bad work…. help, someone!!

  147. 147.

    rikyrah

    April 10, 2019 at 5:19 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    It’s really cute that y’all think that when these psychos come after contraception that the American people are going to rise up and draw a line in the sand.

    I disagree. That’s the in-your-face thing that women will understand. Even the lowest of the lowest information voters.

  148. 148.

    bemused

    April 10, 2019 at 5:20 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    As my husband says, they don’t give a shit about babies once they are born.
    They hate people who get government assistance but will fight tooth and nail to abolish abortion. Why do they want more people on assistance?

  149. 149.

    Boris, Rasputin's Evil Twin

    April 10, 2019 at 5:23 pm

    @Betty Cracker: I would suggest it’s more like having a hemorrhoid removed and reinserted.

  150. 150.

    Ladyraxterinok

    April 10, 2019 at 5:24 pm

    @JaneE: In HS in the 50s ‘everyone knew’ you didn’t go to a Catholic hospital if you were pregnant. Why? They would save the baby and let the mother die, even if she had several kids or the baby being born was in great trouble.

  151. 151.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 10, 2019 at 5:27 pm

    @bemused:

    I know. The absence of logical rigor is shocking.

  152. 152.

    bemused

    April 10, 2019 at 5:31 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    They’re pretty much illogical on everything.

  153. 153.

    joel hanes

    April 10, 2019 at 5:35 pm

    @Sab:

    These two stories are not remotely comparable

    You are refuting claims I did not make.
    In fact, I made no comparisons nor claims at all.
    I simply recommended a movie germane to the general topic.

    I admire your passion about this issue.

  154. 154.

    Sab

    April 10, 2019 at 5:38 pm

    @Brachiator:@Brachiator: Infuriated me when I first saw this. Thought about it a bit and calmed down.

    My outrage shouldn’t be gender specific. Lots of guys are on my side.

    But do you you accept that women are dying and being damaged needlessly by the save all fetus frenzy that can’ t actually save all fetuses?

  155. 155.

    eemom

    April 10, 2019 at 5:38 pm

    @joel hanes:

    Also The Magdalene Sisters.

    Also Four Months Three Weeks and Two Days — a rivetingly horrifying film about a young woman getting an abortion in Communist Romania.

  156. 156.

    Ladyraxterinok

    April 10, 2019 at 5:39 pm

    @Brachiator: Many Evangelical groups visit Israel every week. From blurbs about the tours I’ve seen on TV and YouTube they focus primarily on visiting sites of Jesus’ life and ministry. Also Plain of Meggido sp? where final battle of Armaggedon will take place. Modern Israel is there to provide transportation, hotels, and restaurants. And out look sites with guardrails and tourist souvenirs.

  157. 157.

    J R in WV

    April 10, 2019 at 5:43 pm

    @Sab:

    Keep on smirking, guys.

    No one is smirking about these issues, here, today. Sometimes people use snark as a way to deal with the horror of today’s AmuriKKKa, which is a long way from smirking about women who need an abortion to live.

    No one here approves of a ban on abortion, whether medically necessary or elective for another important reason.

    Get over yourself.

    I still have a large comment containing information about the horror of the abortion ban in Romania during the days of “communist” dictatorship in moderation. Haha…

  158. 158.

    Sab

    April 10, 2019 at 5:45 pm

    @joel hanes: @joel hanes: @joel hanes: @joel hanes: @joel hanes: @Sab: @joel hanes: I agree with that. Philomena was traumatized by the separation ( and so was her son) but I don’t know that either of them thought she made a wrong decision. The movie says not.

    What in hell does this have to do with women dying nedlessly in childbirth.

  159. 159.

    eemom

    April 10, 2019 at 5:56 pm

    @joel hanes:

    Incoherent misplaced belligerence is not the same thing as passion.

  160. 160.

    Adam L Silverman

    April 10, 2019 at 5:58 pm

    @WaterGirl: You’ve never seen us together, have you…//

  161. 161.

    PenAndKey

    April 10, 2019 at 5:59 pm

    @Sab:

    Too many men in our commentariat.
    Keep on smirking, guys.

    I read through the entire comment thread and don’t see a single comment from someone “smirking” at this issue. Are some snarky or using gallows humor in their comments? Sure, but what else would you have us do? My wife would be dead if D&C wasn’t an option for miscarriages, and the law proposed in Texas? It would see her prosecuted for homicide and threatened with execution for saving her life rather than continue a non-viable pregnancy if we lived there. There’s absolutely nothing funny about that, but if I have a choice between a bout of dark humor or making statements that would likely get me put on a government threat watch list I know which one I’ll do every time.

  162. 162.

    Sab

    April 10, 2019 at 6:03 pm

    @J R in WV: I haven’t heard a peek yet about this anything being an abortion issue. Not a peep. All afternoon. Now you jump in, but not a peep until I implicated “you guys”.

  163. 163.

    Brachiator

    April 10, 2019 at 6:08 pm

    @Sab:

    But do you you accept that women are dying and being damaged needlessly by the save all fetus frenzy that can’ t actually save all fetuses?

    It’s not even a question. It’s not about accepting that women are dying, it’s about preventing them from dying from this mischief and oppression.

    @Ladyraxterinok:

    Many Evangelical groups visit Israel every week.

    Yeah, but they see the country through their Biblical filters. I would love it if a tour guide reminded them that abortion was legal in Israel, and possibly underwritten by American tax dollars.

  164. 164.

    joel hanes

    April 10, 2019 at 6:21 pm

    @Sab:

    I give up. Pied.

  165. 165.

    Brachiator

    April 10, 2019 at 6:22 pm

    @J R in WV:

    While the childbed mortality rate kept declining over the years in neighboring countries, in Romania it increased to more than ten times that of its neighbors.

    One of the few times that I was overcome by rage was watching a tv segment about children in Romania. These insane policies resulted in an overflow of children sent to orphanages, where they were neglected because of staff shortages and incompetence and lack of care. I have never been able to watch any repeat or similar segment of such despicable abuse of children.

  166. 166.

    debbie

    April 10, 2019 at 6:45 pm

    Ohio just passed a law outlawing abortion beginning at 6 weeks without exception. If these assholes truly cared about the child, they would have enacted accompanying legislation criminalizing the behavior of the man who couldn’t keep his fucking pants zipped.

  167. 167.

    Jack Hughes

    April 10, 2019 at 8:11 pm

  168. 168.

    ascap_scab

    April 10, 2019 at 11:22 pm

    And I just don’t know how we are going to deal with them

    Simple, round up all of the MAGAts, put them in FEMA camps, and release the smallpox.

  169. 169.

    brendancalling

    April 10, 2019 at 11:36 pm

    Lincoln, Sherman, Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower knew how to deal with this scum. Their kind is in short supply today.

  170. 170.

    Darkrose

    April 10, 2019 at 11:55 pm

    Oddly, none of these allegedly pro-life clowns seem to think the awful maternal death rates for black women are a problem.

  171. 171.

    prob50

    April 11, 2019 at 12:08 am

    @Brachiator:

    Married five times. Sounds like a loser who’s holding a hell of a grudge. Also, too, if he is getting all Biblical and shit, isn’t it personally irresponsible for him to have been married more than once?

    ‘

    But that doesn’t count because he’s a righteous Christian male. The get to make up shit to exempt and absolve themselves as the situation(s) evolve. Those women, on the other hand, well, underneath it all they’re clearly a lower level of the species and need to be dealt with by firmer an surer hands – you know, like Rep. Tinderholt

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