On CNN this morning, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts tossed aside the evasions his Republican Party used to rely on to assure American women that Republicans would not, in fact, force them to give birth to the babies of their rapists. No abortion exceptions for incest or rape, said Ricketts. None.
Under Republican government in Nebraska and elsewhere, a 12 year old girl raped by her father will carry that pregnancy to term.
It's a position that is almost required, if one truly believes in the "personhood" of a fertilized egg with no organs or nervous system. Pete Ricketts knows not a damn thing about medicine, but has strong religious convictions that he believes should override medical knowledge—not for him, but for every last American of every religion or no religion, in any circumstance, enforced by the powers of the state.
Christina Reynolds, VP of Communications at EMILY's List, talks about spending $150 million to center abortion rights in this November’s elections on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast
This is what is coming. Republicans have vowed they would do it ever since racist evangelical leaders of past decades latched onto abortion as a means of galvanizing support for a Christian nationalism-premised erasing of the last half-century of gained civil rights. The leaked news that the Supreme Court the Republican Party packed exclusively with theocrats is on the cusp of ending federal abortion rights means that Pete Ricketts and other Republicans like him will now use their power to implement whatever faux-religious rules their base demands of them.
Republicans are done being coy about what's coming next. They don't believe they need to play those games, now that they have a Supreme Court that will back their theocratic moves every step of the way.
