The Real Reason Why the GOP Is Rushing to Pass Abortion Bans Without Exceptions for Rape

[ShazzieB]

BY MARK JOSEPH STERN

The Supreme Court’s June 24 decision overruling Roe v. Wade unleashed an immediate and relentless flood of cruelty against pregnant Americans. Child victims of rape and incest, including a 10-year-old girl in Ohio, must cross state lines to obtain abortions. Patients undergoing a miscarriage are compelled to bleed out for days and risk sepsis before doctors are willing to terminate their pregnancies. Those with ectopic pregnancies, which are lethal and non-viable, are denied treatment due to the presence of a fetal “heartbeat.” Women suspected of being pregnant are denied vital treatment for autoimmune disorders because they happen to induce abortion, too.

In the face of these horror stories, the anti-abortion movement has doubled down. Jim Bopp, general counsel for the National Right to Life, said that the 10-year-old girl rape victim Ohio should have been forced to carry her rapist’s fetus, telling Politico: “She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child.” Other anti-abortion groups condemned the girl’s abortion as “violence perpetuated against her.” And John Seago, the president of Texas Right to Life, acknowledged that abortion bans may cause doctors to delay care for miscarriage patients until complications arise.

These organizations are defending a legal regime that they helped to craft. Most post-Roe abortion bans contain no exception for rape or incest, and only an extremely vague, narrow exception to protect the life of the mother. These laws are crafted to outlaw abortion in all but the most dire circumstances, when the patient is actively dying because of pregnancy—and even then, the bans are so ambiguous that doctors fear liability if they terminate.

The rest of the article consists of the author's interview with Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law and a preeminent expert on the history of abortion in the United States. I strongly urge reading the whole thing, as it contains some shockers. The rules here won't allow me to post enough to give you the full flavor, but here's the part that I personally found most disturbing:

STERN: My sense is that many anti-abortion advocates believe it is worth risking the death of the patient by providing extremely narrow health exemptions in order to spare a maximum number of fetuses from termination. Do you think that’s fair?

ZIEGLER: I think that’s fair. There has been a growing push to get rid of life-saving exceptions. In the worldview most folks in the anti-abortion movement have, abortion is murder. It’s worse not only in the sense that it’s certain death, but that it’s intentional. From their standpoint, if some women die because they’re refused care, that isn’t a certain death, there isn’t intentionally going to be a death, so that’s the lesser of the evils in that situation.

Source:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/10-year-old-girl-rape-ohio-abortion-incest-life-exceptions.html

Did you all get that? These anti-abortion freaks think occasionally letting a pregnant person die unnecessarily is worth it if that prevents an abortion here and there! They really do! Anyone with a uterus is expendable to them; but beings that cannot live outside a uterus are not! GAH!

WTF is WRONG with these (so-called) people?

[TreasonousBastard]

1. That is an extraordinary twisting of logic. In a proper world, they would be run out on a rail.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. The REAL reason:

To get a case to the USSC on the basis of rape/incest and get abortion banned nationwide on those terms.

Last month, abortion was banned procedurally and letting states decide.
Next time, it will be substantively, on the basis of abortion is murder, period.