solarbird | Fascism Watch (2) for January 5th, 2024: “Shoulda Kept Your Legs Shut, Bitch”

Emergency rooms not required to perform life-saving abortions, federal appeals court rules.

This is another “did I read that right?” moment, and yes, you did. So let’s take a deep breath and really breathe this one in, shall we?

Federal Health and Human Services sent out guidance saying that local post-Roe anti-abortion laws that didn’t include exemptions for the life of the mother were preempted by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires hospitals to perform an abortion if it’s necessary to save the mother’s life.

Texas sued, of course, saying fuck the would-be mom, better two tragedies than one murder, right?

If you don’t know, that’s an old anti-abortion line against saving people whose pregnancies have gone horribly, horribly wrong and are literally killing them. It asserts that it’s better that both the foetus (“preborn baby”) and mother die, than it is to act to save the mother.

And now the Fascist Fifth have ruled in their favour, because fuck that bitch, she doesn’t know how to do her job as a breeding machine right and shoulda kept her legs shut, apparently.

Obviously, they didn’t state either the “better two tragedies” or the “shoulda kept her legs shut” lines, but that’s what they goddamn well mean, and we know that’s what they mean because those are the policies they actually upheld in practice.

Some Republicans are just back to saying these things outright – see the Idaho Republican Party adopting as their platform that saving the mother’s life is not justification for abortion and should not be exempted. (Reporting accurately on that got me my first Twitter suspension, I should note. I was off the birdsite for six months.)

And the “legs shut” line? That’s not decades ago, that popped up again in Republican statehouses last year, literally as justification for anti-abortion laws.

Now, most will say they will protect the life of the parent; they say all kinds of shit they don’t mean. But without fail, when it comes to actually allowing abortions to save a life… not so much. “Better two tragedies” and “shoulda kept her legs shut” are their real words. For example:

When Kate Cox won an injunction in court to get an abortion of a 100% dead-on-arrival foetus, Texas said they’d prosecute any doctors who aided her anyway, the courts be damned. And then when her health started to collapse and she left the state for emergency care, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that the possibly-lethal and guaranteed-not-to-succeed pregnancy couldn’t be potentially lethal because her doctor didn’t sue personally.

Go ahead. Try to parse that in a way that makes sense other than “better two tragedies” and “shoulda kept your legs shut.” I dare you.

I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but when someone’s actions contradict their words, it’s the actions that count. And their actions are crystal clear. There’s a continuous, reflexive reaction amongst moderates and liberals to apply good faith to so many of these assholes, and I beg you to get over it, because there is no good faith here. There never has been. What they say is what they think will serve them best in the moment; what they do is what counts.

Given all that, it’s no wonder they’re doing everything they can to keep abortion rights off the ballot. After all, they absolutely do not care that this isn’t what the people want, and their stupid “votes” just get in the way.

Do you think I exaggerate? Check out this interview from Ohio. After Republicans lost trying to defend their statewide comprehensive abortion ban even after voters added abortion rights to the state constitution, they’re trying another end-run around around their own constitution via giving legal “personhood” to any fertilised cell:

“Do you think that putting forward a personhood bill would be going against the will of the people?” Statehouse reporter Morgan Trau asked [Republican Austin Beigel].

“It would be going against the majority of the voters, yes, I fully acknowledge that,” Beigel responded. “Voters can decide to do things that are immoral and evil; That has been a deeply historical part of our country and the majority of people have desired evil at many times in our culture’s history.”
Morgan Trau reporting for WCPO News, December 18, 2023

They know the people don’t want this, and they don’t care. If the voters – if the people – want otherwise, it’s the people who are wrong, and they need to sit down and shut up and do what their Republican betters tell them to do.

Particularly if you’re a woman who can’t succeed at her only real job – carrying babies for a man.

eta: Shortly after publishing this, I saw that the US Supreme Court just allowed Idaho to continue enforcing its version of the Texas anti-abortion laws while pending appeal. Hey, can’t miss an opportunity to let more women die, can you?