It’s on the menu
The Overton Window has shifted a lot on abortion what with the extremists deciding lately on a total ban with no exceptions and proposing to limit interstate travel etc. It wasn’t long ago that these ideas weren’t even discussed among “pro-lifers.” Now it’s a mainstream Republican position. Is that going to be enough for them? Not bloody likely.
If you thought they cared about cute little babies, think again. This is really what it’s all about:
A new pro-forced pregnancy proposal in the South Carolina General Assembly that would make people who obtain abortion care eligible for the death penalty was portrayed as coming from the fringes of the Republican Party by one GOP lawmaker—but with 21 state Republicans backing the legislation, critics said the idea is representative of the party’s anti-choice agenda.
Proposed by state Rep. Rob Harris, the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023 would amend the state’s criminal code to give a zygote, or fertilized egg, “equal protection under the homicide laws of the state”—meaning obtaining an abortion could be punishable by the death penalty.
The bill does not include an exception for people whose pregnancies result from rape or incest, and political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen noted its language is vague enough to suggest that some people who suffer miscarriages could become eligible for the death penalty.
The exceptions provided by Harris include only people who are “compelled” by others to have an abortion against their will or people whose continued pregnancies carry the threat of “imminent death or great bodily injury,” although numerous cases since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade have demonstrated how exceptions to protect a pregnant person’s life often put their safety at risk.
[…]
“It’s not just one lone extremist,” wrote Tessa Stuart at Rolling Stone.
Harris and his co-sponsors—seven of whom have requested to have their names removed from the legislation as it’s garnered national attention—are just the latest policymakers to propose punishments for people who obtain abortions. Alabama’s attorney general said in January that residents should be prosecuted for taking abortion pills, and former President Donald Trump said as a presidential candidate in 2016 that “there has to be some form of punishment” for abortion patients before walking back the statement.
A number of Texas lawmakers have proposed making people who obtain abortions eligible for capital punishment in recent years.
This is what the “personhood” movement is all about. Granting fetuses all the rights of fully formed humans means that a woman commits homicide if she has an abortion. They have always tried to finesse this. They know that people are appalled. But at some point it can’t be avoided and it appears that it’s rapidly becoming something they no longer want to avoid.