Implausible Deniability
Republicans know exactly what abortion bans are doing
When Republicans proposed a birth control ‘protection’ bill excluding emergency contraception this week, Sen. Jodi Ernst said, “We want to prevent a pregnancy, not end a pregnancy.” Republicans’ star witness at Tuesday's Senate committee hearing on abortion made a similar false claim, testifying that IUDs and the morning-after pill are abortifacients. So you can imagine my barely-contained eye-roll when conservative lawmakers insisted they voted down Democrats’ federal legislation to protect birth control because “there is no threat to access to contraception.”
‘Gaslighting’ is vastly overused, but in this case it’s hard to imagine a more apt term.
The nightmare that’s unfolded since Roe was overturned has been swift, far-reaching, and defined by women’s suffering: Cancer patients denied abortions, raped children forced to leave their home states for care, women who describe feeling like “walking coffins” after being made to carry nonviable pregnancies to term. That’s to say nothing of those simply denied the ability to decide their own lives and futures, their autonomy stolen overnight.
These stories alone are a horror. But what makes them an insult is Republicans’ continued insistence that everything is just fine. It’s a coincidence that OBGYNs are fleeing anti-choice states. Women going septic? Not their fault. Ever-expanding travel bans? That’s for our protection.
They’re telling us the monster under the bed isn’t real while peeking out from beneath our mattresses.
On the same day doctors testified to the Senate HELP committee about not being able to help teenage incest victims and patients with blood clotting disorders, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy chastised the physicians and Democrats for “fear-mongering” about the consequences of abortion bans. "How dare such a vulnerable moment in a woman’s life be misrepresented and used for political gain,” he said.
How dare who? Surely not doctors, who are risking their medical licenses and prison time to treat their patients. Not abortion rights advocates, working around the clock to reduce even the tiniest bit of suffering brought on by the GOP’s laws.
Are we truly meant to believe that in a moment when conservatives are hushing and head-patting the women begging for their lives that it’s us who has the gall? Fuck that and fuck them.
How dare they pretend that this is all in our heads. In just the last month, the Texas GOP platform called for abortion patients to get the death penalty, Republican Senators introduced a bill to create a government-run website to collect pregnant women’s data, and a new report showed how abortion bans have empowered domestic abusers, now able to wield the power of the state to force their victims into pregnancies they can’t escape.
Republicans want us to buy that this is being done for our benefit? That their bans are there to protect us? How stupid do they think we are?
This is a country where pregnancy is 20 times deadlier than skydiving, and conservatives not only want to force women into childbirth—they’re fighting for the right to deny us life-saving emergency abortions. We know they hate us. We know they want us dead. Why keep up the ruse?
There’s no such thing as plausible deniability when it comes to abortion bans. Not when politicians have to stack maternal mortality committees with anti-abortion activists so the data won’t show how bans kill women. Not when Republicans spend millions of dollars to stop voters from having a say, knowing that Americans are desperate to restore abortion rights.
The war on democracy and truth is just as clear-eyed as the attacks on our bodies, and Republicans are well aware of the consequences for both. And that’s the thing we’d do well to remind Americans: Whether it’s women’s deaths or the nation’s, it’s a price Republicans are willing to pay.
To quote Jessica:
Fuck that and fuck them.
The real life results of the abortion bans haven’t fazed the self-described “pro-life” proponents; they tell us their laws (which withhold essential medical care from pregnant people) are working “as intended”Their indifference reveals that “pro-life” is code for: LET WOMEN SUFFER AND DIE.
Instead of fixing their draconian laws, they blame doctors and take no responsibility for fixing the mess they’ve created.
The “pro-life” cruelty is endless. They force vaginal birth or c-sections on pregnant women who have no hope of delivering a surviving baby. Then they tell us some bullshit about the dignity of the fetus requiring it be delivered whole. (It’s still dead. Geesh.) What about the women’s dignity? They. Don’t. Care. About Women. We’re expendable to them. Like buses, if this one passes, another will come along.
Restoring Roe would be a good start to fix this, but it is not enough. Not nearly enough.
Even when Roe was the law of the land, Republicans never stopped chip, chip, chipping away at women’s reproductive rights. Sure many of their bullshit laws were overturned as unconstitutional under Roe, but it took years of legal action. It was a hollow victory because, in the interim, clinics closed and the harm was done. When they lost in court, the Republicans started over again with some other bullshit law. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Here’s how controlling abortion works: Don’t. Don’t restrict it. Let women decide.
It shouldn’t matter if you’ve been pregnant for a moment or months on end. If you need to end a pregnancy, you shouldn’t be denied medical care to end it safely.
Abortion on demand and without apology. Why? Because no woman stays pregnant if she has a choice and doesn’t want to be pregnant. Read that again. Pregnancy isn’t a whim. Women should be taken seriously. If it’s a choice between the fetus and me, it should be my decision; if the fetus has no chance (as is revealed in the many stories we hear), then no stranger, no law, should prevent me from safely ending my pregnancy.
Too many complications can occur at any time during a pregnancy to list them all. We trust women to raise children. We must trust women to make their own reproductive health care decisions, including when and if they have children.
Forced birth is cruel. It can kill women and girls. If they can force us to give birth, can forced sex be far behind? (I wouldn’t underestimate their cruelty, they’ve shown their lack of good sense and ignorance when they decide women with a dead or dying fetus should be denied medical care and then they lie to us and tell us an abortion IS NOT medical care and they lie against and tell us the fetus IS NOT a part of the woman’s body.)
Lawmakers, mostly ignorant white male Republicans, are ignoring warnings from
medical experts and passing laws which demand doctors not intervene while pregnant women suffer and possibly die.
Next time a lawmaker says they are “pro-life” I sure hope someone corrects them and tells them what they are really saying is: LET WOMEN SUFFER AND DIE. There is nothing related to promoting life when the fetus can’t survive and the woman is denied an abortion so that she may wind up in intensive care with blood poisoning.
When women cannot control their own bodies, there is no democracy for women.
I plan to vet all elected officials before I vote and vote only for those who support democracy and the rights of individuals. The right to love and marry the person you chose. The right to vote. Reproductive rights. Vote the SOBs out until they learn their lesson—we won’t tolerate their bullshit.