Yeah, good luck with that
Democrats cannot let women forget what MAGA Republicans and Christian nationalists (to the extent they don’t overlap) think of them.
My God, Rep. Matt Gaetz says it right out loud:
“This is the blue collar realignment of the Republican Party and what I can tell you is for every Karen we lose, there’s a Julio and a Jamal ready to sign up for the MAGA movement, and that bodes well for our ability to be more diverse and to be more durable as we head into not only the rest of the primary contest, but also the general election.”
Yeah, good luck with that.
In case you missed testimony by Jessica Valenti (Abortion Every Day) on Wednesday before some Senate Democrats, her prepared statement was appalling. In part:
Right now, there is a quiet but well-funded campaign led by the most powerful anti-abortion groups in the country that is focused entirely on pressuring and forcing women to carry doomed pregnancies to term.
They’re not only trying to do away with exceptions for nonviable pregnancies—they’re trying to eradicate prenatal testing altogether. It’s a lot easier to force women to carry a dying fetus to term if they never get diagnosed to begin with.
When I tell people about this, the question I get asked most often is why? Why would anyone want to deliberately create a world where women are forced to be “walking coffins”?
It is inexplicable, until you understand that this has nothing to do with families or babies, but enforcing a worldview that says it’s women’s job to be pregnant and to stay pregnant, no matter what the cost or consequence.
But because Republicans don’t have the bravery to admit that truth—and because they’re afraid of voters, who are more pro-choice than ever—they lie.
Here is Valenti delivering those remarks:
Valenti’s full statement is here, including her account of “a 21 year old woman in Texas who was denied an abortion even though her fetus developed without a head, and a hospital worker in South Carolina who watched a college student die after attempting to end her own pregnancy.”
She has been following what I called the anti-abortion underground for some time, but it has been mainly on her substack.
“I was thrilled to be pregnant for the fifth time,” said Dr. Austin Dennard, a Texas OB-GYN and plaintiff in a lawsuit brought against the state by people denied abortions since the Dobbs decision. “Then, a routine ultrasound showed devastating — the brain and skull had not formed. It was anencephaly. The most severe neural tube diagnosis. Although relatively rare, this is fatal,” she said, holding back tears.
Under Texas law, Dennard had to flee her state to get an abortion.
But don’t worry, “Karen,” MAGA Republicans are cocksure they can hold power without you.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) posted the entire 2-1/2 hr hearing on YouTube.