My testimony before Congress was used as a dog whistle to incite anti-abortion hate [View all]

[Jilly_in_VA]

By Jessica Waters

I testified before Congress last week about safety. And then I became the target of extremist hatred.

I addressed a House Judiciary subcommittee for two hours about the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a federal law — that Republicans want to repeal — that prohibits violence and harassment against reproductive healthcare providers or patients seeking that care.

Less than an hour from when I walked out of Congress, my phone began lighting up with emails and social media alerts (and urgent messages from security teams tracking them). Scores of the messages and posts said: You are a bitch. A whore. Slurs that can’t be published. Some questioned whether I can still be “aborted” and then answered, “I think she can.” They said things like, “this is why firing squads are back.” They asked one another where I work. They hypothesized that I am infertile and that I hate children. They said they should “exact vengeance,” that I will burn in hell, that I am Satan, that I am evil.

In less than 24 hours, I saw from the alerts and my inbox tally that I had received or been mentioned in hundreds of thousands of ugly, abusive comments.

I quickly learned that a member of the subcommittee that held the hearing had posted a clip from the hearing on social media. Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, didn’t attend most of the hearing but spent the few minutes he was there engaging in a designed-for-clickbait monologue about my “favorite” abortion methods (even though the point of the hearing was violence against abortion providers). Within minutes, dozens of conservative outlets and influencers began reposting and sharing the clip — and the storm of hate was unleashed. And Gill reposted and thus amplified the hate.

https://www.ms.now/opinion/face-act-testimony-congress-harassment

I guess we know what kind of person Brandon Gill is---a glory-seeking, hate-mongering butthole. Well, I take part of that back--buttholes serve a useful pupose.