Sunday, July 3, 2022

Anti-abortion zealots call for murder charges against women who get an abortion

Abortion “abolitionists” are the outer edge of the anti-abortion movement. They’re looking to gain followers after the decision to overturn Roe, unsettling mainstream anti-abortion groups.

Hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last week, a man with a wiry, squared-off beard and a metal cross around his neck celebrated with his team at a Brazilian steakhouse. He pulled out his phone to livestream to his followers.

“We have delivered a huge blow to the enemy and to this industry,” the man, Jeff Durbin, said. But, he explained, “our work has just really begun.”

“Even the states that have trigger laws,” which ban abortion at conception without exceptions for rape or incest, did not go far enough, Mr. Durbin, a pastor in the greater Phoenix area, said. “They do not believe that the woman should ever be punished.”

Resistance to “the question of whether or not people who murder their children in the wombs are guilty,” he said, “is going to have to be something we have to overcome, because women are still going to be killing their children in the womb.”

Even as those in the anti-abortion movement celebrate their nation-changing Supreme Court victory, there are divisions over where to go next. The most extreme, like Mr. Durbin, want to pursue what they call “abortion abolition,” a move to criminalize abortion from conception as homicide, and hold women who have the procedure responsible — a position that in some states could make those women eligible for the death penalty. That position is at odds with the anti-abortion mainstream, which opposes criminalizing women and focuses on prosecuting providers.

I recall that at one time, not that long ago, the outer edge of Republican Party ideology became the mainstream. Ruthless laissez-faire capitalists and enraged, vengeful Christian nationalists took over the party. Then the party elected the ex-president, and he mainstreamed a lot more of what used to be fringe crackpottery, corruption, lies and cruelty.

So when the NYT refers to abortion abolitionists as the outer edge of the anti-abortion movement, just remember, they can become the mainstream. They are not very far outside the GOP mainstream. The Republican Party already is radical far right and fascist. So why not charge women with murder and execute them for getting an abortion? The logic is simple.

Maybe the Republican war chant for the 2022 and 2024 elections will go from LOCK HER UP!! LOCK HER UP!! to KILL HER DEAD!! KILL HER DEAD!!


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