A Republican politician is shocked to find out that actions have consequences.
I’m haunted by this South Carolina Republican, Rep. Neal Collins, realizing that the anti-abortion bills he supported are now forcing women and girls to carry nonviable pregnancies at risk of sepsis, death, and loss of the uterus. All these outcomes were inevitable and predicted. pic.twitter.com/w9z3qbvTNI
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) August 23, 2022
Oh no, he says, do you mean to tell me when I took choice away from women I condemned some of them to horrible suffering, misery, death, and infertility? WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THIS MIGHT HAPPEN?
I honestly don't know what to do about people like this. Not only did we tell him it could happen, we screamed it at him, we waved signs, we sent emails and postcards and letters.
But I guess he thought we were lying? You know how bitches be.
Or else -- and this is what I suspect -- he didn't bother to listen. What could women and progressives have to say that would be worth listening to? Obviously he already knew what was right.
10 comments:
It's watching history all over again.
I'm honestly surprised he listened to a female doctor. But also it's good that he is not doubling down. I hope joins the forces of good for real this time. Lots of people who think they're on the good guys side change sides once they realize they're the actual baddies, and that's a good thing. It's awful that a 19 year old girl had to be his learning opportunity.
I'm gonna be a little more cynical and guess that he knew fully well this would happen, but now it's happened to a woman he actually knows and sees as a person in some capacity.
"What do you mean MY daughter/mistress/sister can't have an abortion either?"
Oh, yeah, if it happens to THEM, then they suddenly care about it.
I've seen this among my students. If they need an abortion, or one of their family does, then that abortion is okay. If their kid is gay or trans, suddenly they care about LGBTQ rights.
Why didn't they care before? Well, all those OTHER people were just sluts and freaks. Screw them.
It's been shown in our top economics journal:
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.98.1.311
Yep, exactly.
They don't seem to really get it, do they, until it affects them or someone they actually care about directly.
N&M: I'd heard that was true. Didn't know there was research proving it. My God.
There's another one I think by Andrew Oswald that repeats the exact same study with UK politicians with the same findings, but for UK.
I think there's another piece to this, which is a huge lack of understanding of statistics, sociology, medicine, and medical data among both politicians and the general public. It's not just "it's not personal to them." It's also that they didn't understand the information that should have been part of their thinking and they ignored or never thought about the reasons why abortions are performed to begin with.
Years ago I remember telling someone he could be anti-abortion if he wanted to be, but that I thought that he should be directing his efforts towards the reasons why women seek them. That he should be working on anti-poverty efforts, funding early childhood care, making good mental healthcare more universally available, research into maternal/fetal health that leads to fewer dangerous pregnancies. Etc. And I still think that. I would not have a problem with an anti-abortion person who worked to reduce the number of abortions by addressing the problems that abortion solves. But, as we're seeing: if legally saying "nope" is your only end point, you're really just making the problems worse.
Anon: I still remember the "pro-life" student who explained to me that abortions happened because women were "little sluts."
I pointed him toward the data which tells us why abortions happened, but he said that was just liberal lies.
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