Have you heard of RepublicanMD? It’s just like WebMD, except it’s based on GOP talking points instead of science. So, for instance, if your kid has rickets, WebMD might tell you to give her vitamin D supplements tout de suite, whereas, at RepublicanMD, the prescription for every affliction is always more upper-class tax cuts. Hey, it’s just common sense.
Of course, RepublicanMD is even more misleading when it comes to reproductive health care. Conservatives tend to be against sex education in schools, and, hoo-boy, does it ever show. It’s like they all learned about sex by watching dogs in their neighborhood give elliptical TED Talks about “late-term abortions” and “legitimate rape.”
The latest Republican womb-bat to stick his foot in his mouth is South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who recently sent out a fundraising email insisting that “if we don’t take back the Senate, Dems will pack the courts, give DC statehood, grant abortions up to 52 weeks, and Republicans will never win again.”
Sweet Fetus Gerulaitis, what on God’s green globule is this man talking about?
Here we go:
To be honest, I like most of the elements of Sen. Scott’s dystopian hellscape, but allowing abortions up to 52 weeks? No thank you.
HuffPost:
“A full-term pregnancy is approximately 40 weeks,” Dr. Meera Shah, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic, told HuffPost. “It is not logical or medically accurate to say that people can be pregnant at 52 weeks―let alone be seeking an abortion. It is comments like this one that underscore exactly why medical decisions should not be made by politicians.”
It’s really not clear why Scott cited 52 weeks, and his office did not return a request for comment.
This kind of doofus doctor cosplaying is nothing new to Republicans, though. For instance, in 2019, when asked if incest victims could still procure abortions under a bill he was proposing, Alabama state Sen. Clyde Chambliss said, “Yes, until she knows she’s pregnant.”
Also in 2019, Montana Sen. Steve Daines decided it was a good idea to attack reproductive rights by comparing women to sea turtles.
Transcript!
“If you were to take or destroy the eggs of a sea turtle—now I said the eggs, not the hatchlings, that’s also a penalty but the eggs—the criminal penalties are severe: up to a $100,000 fine and a year in prison,” said Daines. “Now why? Why do we have laws in place that protect the eggs of a sea turtle or the eggs of eagles?
“Because, when you destroy an egg, you’re killing a preborn baby sea turtle or preborn baby eagle. Yet when it comes to a preborn human baby, rather than a sea turtle, that baby will be stripped of all protections in all 50 states, under the Democrats’ bill that we’ll be voting on tomorrow. Is that what the America the left wants?”
Well, there’s an appropriate comparison. Because humans are currently an endangered species. God forbid our population dip below 7.9 billion anytime soon.
And then there’s Republican Idaho state representative Vito Barbieri, who appears to believe the vagina is part of the human digestive system.
As Rachel Maddow says, “Just watch this.” Seriously, it’s less than 80 seconds long.
Referring to a procedure in which patients swallow a camera that later takes images of their intestines to detect abnormalities, Barbieri asked this insightful question: “Can this same procedure then be done in a pregnancy? Swallowing a camera and helping the doctor to determine what the situation is?”
The answer, of course, is no. Because the vagina is not connected to the stomach.
Yes, these are the same Republican people who have made themselves the final arbiters of once-private decisions involving pregnant bodies. And the above is just a small snippet of this nonstop goofball caravan.
Of course, there are steps each of us can take to put reproductive health decisions back in the hands of patients and doctors—and it all starts with giving President Joe Biden a Congress he can work with over the next half of his term. Volunteer to send letters to voters, or contribute to Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.
And most of all: Vote!
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.