What the Hell Happened With Bernie Sanders's Abortion Comments This Week?

[ehrnst]

35. If a politician had been asked what he would do about ISIS fighters sneaking in with the migrants

at the southern border, and he said he "Wouldn't close the border, but, I mean, that’s a concern … that’s an issue that society has got to deal with, and it is of concern,” would you have called that politician's immigration position liberal or Democratic, or perpetuating a GOP myth?

Or would you agree that they should have said, "That's a fallacy spread by the GOP and RW groups, so it's not an issue. Next question."

Bernie said the opposite of that about a RW fallacy about women who get abortion, and in a very status quo political sidestep to avoid revealing that he didn't know about the topic, he validated that RW fallacy.

"Well, I'm concerned with the issue that you say is concerning, and certainly we, as a society need to be concerned about it."

Would you give any other candidate a pass on that?

I highly doubt it.

But just a few seconds later, things went off the rails when Todd inexplicably asked, “Are you in all concerned, though, about this idea that people may try to worry about the sex of a child, or essentially, are those types of restrictions on abortions something you’re open to?”

Bernie, obviously caught off guard but also obviously uneducated on the issue, capitulated. “That, I mean, that’s a concern,” Sanders said, adding, “Well, that’s not a, I wouldn’t use a restriction on, that’s an issue that society has got to deal with, and it is of concern.”

Todd followed up to the question asking, “How would you deal with that in the law?”

“I don’t know how, at this particular point,” Sanders said. “I would deal with it, but that is an issue that we really have got to deal with.”

Sanders was clearly stumbling, but by acknowledging “that’s a concern” legitimizes Todd’s question, which is one designed to cloud the issue. Sex-selective abortion is a straw man argument and proponents of it in the United States are purely looking to restrict abortion through any means possible. It’s just another way to malign and police women’s motives when seeking an abortion.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-chuck-todd-terrible-takes-on-abortion-837317/