Notes from Evil Bender

After all, those who attempt to hire an assassin are complicit in the murder that is carried out. But as Amanda notes,

Anti-choicers correctly perceive that their raging misogyny is a strike against them, that their quivering hatred of women who don’t apologize for being daughters of Eve with actual sexualities and carbon-based bodies will tend to draw people short, since half of us are women (with sexualities, due to that humanity thing and all) and the other half still have mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and friends that they don’t want to see being treated like criminals for the high crime of living your life, even with the dreaded sex in it. And in order to get the stench of misogyny off them, they came across a, um, brilliant? P.R. move: Instead of saying that women are evil, let’s just say women are stupid, that they have sex (and use contraception and have abortions) not because they really want to, but because they’re badgered by men, feminists, and doctors who make so much money off performing a procedure that technically goes on the books as running in the red and is, at places like Planned Parenthood, subsidized largely by more profitable endeavors like supplying contraception. (Not that PP ever runs in the black, since they are a non-profit and subsist not only on fees, but donations and government funding.)

There’s no question that, if abortion truly was murder, one would have to charge the woman carrying the fetus. After all, Sideshow Bob ’s argument (“Attempted murder, now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?”) aside, if anti-choicers argument against abortion is legitimate, than seeking out an abortion must be a crime.  

But to admit that would never do, so instead we get highlights like this from the Republican youTube debate:

Partial transcript below the fold:

Journey: Hi. My name is Journey. I’m from Texas. And this question is for all (inaudible) pro-life candidates.

In the event that abortion becomes illegal and a woman obtains an abortion anyway, what should she be charged with, and what should her punishment be? What about the doctor who performs the abortion?

Cooper: Congressman Paul, 90 seconds.

Paul: You know, it’s not a federal function to determine the penalties for a crime of abortion if it’s illegal in a state. It’s up to the state, it’s up to the juries. And it should be up to discretion because it’s not an easy issue to deal with. But the first thing we have to do is get the federal government out of it. We don’t need a federal abortion police. That’s the last thing that we need.

(Applause)

But for the …

Cooper: Should a woman be charged with a crime?

Paul: Pardon me?

Cooper: Should a woman be charged with a crime?

Paul: I don’t personally think so. I’m an O.B. doctor, and I practiced medicine for 30 years, and I of course never saw one time when a medically necessary abortion had to be done.

But so I think it certainly is a crime. But I also understand the difficulties. I think when you’re talking about third trimester deliberate abortion and partial birth abortions, I mean, there has to be a criminal penalty for the person that’s committing that crime. But I really think it’s the person who commits the crime. And I think that is the abortionist.

Cooper: So you’re saying a doctor should be punished.

What sort of punishment should they get?

Paul: Well, I think it’s up to the states. I’m not in the state — I’m not running for governor. And I think it’s different, and I don’t think it should be all 50 states the same way. So, I don’t think that should be up to the president to decide that.

Cooper: Senator Thompson?

Thompson: Yes. The young lady’s question is…

(Applause)

… the young lady’s question is premised on if abortion becomes illegal. That presumes Roe v. Wade is overturned, which I think should be our number one focus right now. And that has to do with the kind of Supreme Court justices we put on the bench.

(Applause)

I’m getting there. I’m getting there.

That would mean that it goes back to the states, and then the states would have to outlaw it at an earlier stage than they outlaw it now. Then the question would be, who gets penalized and what should the penalty be.

I think it should be fashioned along the same lines it is now. Most states have abortion laws pertain and prohibit abortion after viability. It goes to the doctor performing the abortion, not the girl, or the young girl, or her parents, whoever it might be. I think that same pattern needs to be followed. It could just be moved up earlier, or much earlier in the process if the state so determined.

Thompson’s got his talking points, but he obviously doesn’t understand the reasons for them. See, Fred, you’re trying to hide your misogyny. Calling women who seek abortions “girls” and “young girls” just demonstrates your contempt for women. After all, there are surely no reasons a woman would seek an abortion, right? Just girls getting pressured into it by their parents.

The “young girl” line is also illuminating about far-right reactions to sex. You can’t say “women shouldn’t have sex, and if they do they should be punished for it by being forced to give birth.” So instead you posit a world where women never seek abortions, only “girls”–because everyone knows girls shouldn’t be having sex, and if they are they’re just sluts who are tricked into giving it up by their boyfriends–who are no doubt in cahoots with “abortionists,” liberals, Muslims, atheists, gays and the ACLU hoping to find the non-existent “abortion industry.” Does that about cover it?

Poor Fred just isn’t quick enough to know he’s supposed to pretend not to hate women, at least while he’s in public.