Thursday, May 09, 2019

NO RIGHT BUT THE RIGHT TO LIFE.

I'm unlocking this morning's newsletter issue (Subscribe! Cheap! ™) about the new Georgia abortion law and how it mirrors the solution Trump proposed back in 2016 -- "some form of punishment" for women who get abortions (the punishment in Georgia's case being prison sentences).  You may recall that, as I wrote at the time, conservatives complained back then that Trump had distorted the pro-life POV -- they didn't want to imprison women, just take away their rights! -- and made him back off.

Well, what Trump proposed then is coming to pass, and conservatives are eerily quiet about it. The few rightwing sites that cover the new law ignore the liability of women; RedState headlines their thin story "Georgia Signs 'Heartbeat Bill' Into Law, Defying Hollywood," as if that were the important part (and for their readers I suppose it is). At The Resurgent there's an item by Jake Wagner that's much longer, but it's mostly made up of wingnut aperçus like "My problem with the heartbeat bill is that abortion is still permitted, albeit within a certain window" and "People have gotten so used to being able to have sex whenever they please that abortion is a nice safety net"; there's no mention of the legal penalties for women. At this writing, big sites like National Review don't mention the law at all.

I expect that if they get around to it anytime soon, they'll try something like this yutz's tweet -- "There's a difference between 'technically the law could be interpreted this way' and 'its reasonable to interpret it this way' and 'it's been interpreted this way in court,' Please breathe a little" -- trying to hold onto the last shreds of plausible deniability while dismissing the women who are targeted by the law as hysterical. But at some point, I expect they'll all just say sure, you can go to prison -- that's what happens to murderers and everyone knows abortion is murder. Look how many fig leaves they've let drop already. Right now it's just the calm before Der Stürmer.

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