Post-Roe Fearmongering is a Lot of Projection
The Left is paralyzed with fear over a taste of their own medicine that we have no intention of giving them.
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade just over a week ago, wild conspiracy theories abound on social media about what schemes pro-lifers are cooking up in order to kill, imprison, and disenfranchise women. These hot (trash) takes range from simple misunderstandings of what the new legal framework is behind the issue of abortion to wildly outlandish scare-tactics that their disseminators know are false, but don’t care because they may get frightened women to vote Democrat this November.
Regardless of the motives of the people who cooked them up, you might notice something familiar about these impending atrocities we pro-lifers are about to commit: they mirror the methods that the modern left employs in order to beat down their political opponents. Years from now, when none of these things have come to pass, my hope is that American voters will begin to realize who the real authoritarians are. From the politicians who make laws actually punishing people for their healthcare choices, to the run-of-the-mill psychotic human resources lady who wants your children to starve because of your political beliefs, far too many on the left want to see their detractors suffer. I’d argue that this sentiment is not remotely as common from conservatives and libertarians — particularly pro-lifers, who are largely driven by a sense of compassion.
Medical Exceptions
One popular myth going around is that women will not be able to get treatment for life-threatening issues that take place during pregnancy. This viral tweet from an Oklahoma minister(???) is one you may have seen popping up recently.
The problems with this tweet are two-fold. First of all, it’s important to note that most pro-lifers don’t actually consider medical procedures done to protect the life of the mother to be an abortion at all, so long as every effort is also made to save the life of even a potentially-viable child. Particularly her claim that “the treatment for a miscarriage that your body won’t release is abortion,” is ludicrous. An abortion is a procedure that’s aim is to end the life of an unborn child. Full stop.
This isn’t simply a matter of a disagreement about definitions, either. When it comes to actual legality and enforcement, whether it’s an abortion or not, every single state that had a trigger ban on abortion that went into effect when Roe was repealed has an exception for protecting the life of the mother. Every single one.
I can see why the lack of compassion for those with medical concerns would be a distinct fear for the left, though, considering that once the COVID-19 vaccine was released, blue states soon turned taking it into a requirement in order to basically engage at all in polite society. The standard method of vaccine mandate enforcement was to show one’s CDC-issued vaccine card. At no point did the federal government (or any state government) create infrastructure for people to file for medical exemptions and request documentation that could get you into restaurants, movie theaters, etc. We (yes, as someone with a heart arrhythmia, that includes me) were left out in the cold. There was no compassion shown to our unique situations, just a demand for compliance to the one-size-fits-all solution that big pharma had concocted.
Data Tracking
Probably the most common scare-tactic I’ve seen employed over the last week is the campaign to warn women to delete their period tracking apps. The fear is that the data could be used against them in court, should a law-enforcement agency in a state with an abortion ban purchase the data from the owners of one or more of these apps. Never mind the fact that in, and I’ll stress this again, every single state with a trigger ban, the act of seeking or even successfully obtaining an abortion is not criminalized, but merely the act of performing one. These conspiracy theorists really would have you believe that you’ll be hunted down by your data and prosecuted, perhaps even for miscarrying.
It is understandable to be fearful of the role that big data can play when government agencies gain access to your data, though. Sort of like how the CDC tracked the phone data of millions of Americans in order to find out, among other things, whether we were obeying our stay-at-home orders or, God forbid, visiting with our neighbors or going to church. I know I certainly don’t like feeling as though the government may be watching me to see if I’m engaging in any sort of dissident activity like that.
Making Felons Out of Regular People
“Voting rights” activist Ellen Kurz pontificated on Twitter that we could be “effectively reversing the 19th Amendment” in our new post-Roe reality.
Again, we’ve already been over that every single state that has banned abortion only criminalizes the abortionist, not the abortion-seeker. It’s also worth noting that most states at this point actually do allow felons to vote upon completion of their sentence. Her ugly cynicism that basically implies every woman has had an abortion aside, Ms. Kurz does raise the valuable point. Careless lawmaking can turn everyday people with no ill intentions into felons, and potentially strip them of their voting rights, at least temporarily.
The implication she’s making is that the same Republican lawmakers who would ban abortion would also benefit from a lack of women voters. What’s a demographic that Democrats would likely benefit from turning their behavior into a felony, though? How about gun owners? The difference is that in states like California, New York, Connecticut, Hawaii, and more, Democrat politicians are actually making ownership of many common firearms and accessories into a felony. Voters who refuse to disarm are faced with a choice: do not comply and risk imprisonment if found out, or move out of the state. Either way, anti-gun politicians lose a vote against them.
While the argument could be made that women will choose to leave states with stricter abortion laws, the difference is that you can always leave the state to get an abortion and then return, without having committed a crime. If you own a gun that your state’s government has deemed illegal, you are constantly in a state of committing a crime.
They’re Just Making Stuff Up at This Point
Or can you leave the state to obtain an abortion without committing a crime? According to blue check “media personality” Chip Franklin, Mississippi might be taking measures to prevent that from happening.
His followers just ate it up, too, making powerful statements like “This isn’t about abortion, it’s about control.” They (rightly) questioned the legality of such a move, and clamored for Democrat politicians to “start fighting back!” There’s just one problem: Mr. Franklin just made this all up. Nowhere does he cite any evidence for his claim, and a quick Google search reveals absolutely nothing about this subject at all. Mr. Franklin does claim to be a comedian, so perhaps the whole thing was a joke. The problem is that if it was, none of his followers seemed to get it. All these people who replied to his tweet believe this, and they are fired up to put a stop to this authoritarian horror-show dystopia that those damned pro-lifers are trying to turn this country into!
It’s comforting to know that Joe Biden’s approval rating sits in the high 30s for the moment, or I may be concerned that this misinformation and fake news could influence our elections and put more actual authoritarians in charge.
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-Brady