The House Committee on Oversight and Reform had a hearing Wednesday about the impact of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and freed Republican-controlled states to pass and enforce horrific abortion bans. Unfortunately, Republicans were present so they quickly made this a sideshow where they displayed their medical ignorance and contempt for reproductive freedom.
Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney from New York had invited abortion providers to testify, but some have already become targets of violence and feared sharing their stories publicly. The Republicans who mourned Supreme Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s tragic separation from his dessert last week have expressed little sympathy for these medical professionals.
Maloney warned that Republicans “are not going to stop with Dobbs” and are “openly planning to impose a national ban on abortion.” Those are both facts, but ranking Republican James Comer has some other facts, such as “shut up!” He insisted that Dobbs didn’t “outlaw abortion” but returned the issue to the states. (You know, where gerrymandered GOP legislatures can outlaw abortion against the will of their own constituents. That’s how GOP governance works no matter what level of government it’s on!)
Corner suggested all this fuss over half the nation losing its bodily autonomy is some clever Democratic ruse to “draw attention away from the failures of the Biden administration — failures that have led to skyrocketing inflation, record-high gas prices, a frightening shortage of baby formula and the worst border crisis in the history of America.”
The baby formula shortage hasn’t improved, so that makes this an even worse time to pass forced-birth laws.
Not every Republican at the abortion hearing wanted to avoid discussing abortion, though. After National Women’s Law Center President Fatima Goss Graves testified about the “legal uncertainty and chaos” Mitch McConnell’s favorite Supreme Court unleashed with Dobbs, GOP Rep. Jody Hice asked Graves if people could give birth to turtles. It’s like she’s having to explain things to not-especially bright second graders.
HICE: Are there any instance of a woman giving birth to something that is not a human being, a baby like a turtle, or as our first lady suggested, a breakfast taco.
Yep, they’re still talking about Dr. Jill Biden’s “controversial” breakfast taco remarks. The supposed complaint is that the first lady compared Hispanic people to tacos (she didn’t, actually), but if Hice thinks she did, what the hell is he talking about?
Oh wait, we get it. He’s trying to do a “gotcha” to “trick” panelists into “admitting” that recently fertilized zygotes are FULL HUMAN BEINGS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEYmNFJGp5Ewww.youtube.com
There was a back-and-forth about personal viability and when a fetus can survive outside the womb. Hice absurdly said, “There are many people who cannot live without insulin. Does that mean we should kill those people who cannot live without insulin?”
This makes me flames-on-the-side-of-my-face angry. No, we don’t summarily execute people who need insulin to survive, but Republicans have zero problem with people dying because they can’t afford insulin. Just a couple months ago, almost every House Republican — including this motherfucker — voted against the Affordable Insulin Now Act, legislation that would’ve capped the price of insulin at $35 a month.
RELATED: It was revealed during the January 6 hearings that Hice was coup-plotting with Trump and other Republicans in December 2020, so it’s somewhat twisted that he’s free to ask Graves insulting questions rather than hiding in Argentina.
But back to today’s witnesses!
Democratic Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow discussed the dire implications from a 1931 Michigan state law that makes abortion a felony “with no exception for age, rape, or incest.” She warned, “Not only would doctors and medical professionals be sent to jail, but so too would countless women and girls.”
She also said:
MCMORROW: I had women reach out to me afraid of even trying to get pregnant, knowing they’re at higher risk of a complicated pregnancy and devastated to think of what might happen.
As the midterms approach, Republicans want to pretend that forced-birth states won’t lock up people for exercising control over their own bodies. They not-so-subtly play to images of white women and children, who we might not imagine the full force of the law crushing. It’s only those naughty abortion providers.
However, Democratic Georgia state Rep. Renitta Shannon wasn’t shy about reminding us how the American justice system treats people of color.
SHANNON: Our criminal legal system is really good at locking up Black and brown folks and … will likely believe Karen, but not believe Keisha when she says she had a miscarriage.
That’s a sad yet undeniable fact.
Republicans claim to treasure life but they demonstrate little compassion for those who are already here.
[NBC News]
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